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( 



THE REFUGEES FROM SLAVERY 

IN CANADA WEST- 



REPORT 



Jfm^mfn's Infjwirg Commission, 



S. G. HOWE 



a 



BOSTON: 

WRIGHT & POTTER, PRINTERS, 4 SPRING LANE. 

18 6 4. 



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PREFACE 



During the last summer, the United States Freedmen's Inquiry 
Commission made an investigation, through one of its members, of the 
condition of the colored population of Canada West. 

This pamphlet contains the result of inquiries and observations made 
during the investigation. At any time but this, an apology might be 
necessary for putting forth, in such a hasty and crude form, the observa- 
tions and speculations which it contains. But now, when every body is 
asking what shall be done with the negroes, — and many are afraid that 
they cannot take care of themselves if left alone, — an account of the 
manner in which twenty thousand are taking care of themselves in 
Canada, may be interesting, even if it be imperfect, and contain 
superriuous speculations. 

It is commonly said that the Canadian refugees are " picked men ; " that 
the very fact of their escape from slavery, is proof of their superiority ; 
and therefore, however well they may succeed in taking cai'e of them- 
selves, it does not prove that ordinary negroes can do the same. There 
is more point than force in this. In the first ])lace, there are vast regions 
of slave territory, from which escape to Canada is almost impossible. 
Secondly, men may lack the courage and skill which are necessary to 
insure escape from slavery, but possess all the qualities necessary to 
provide for themselves and their families. 

The local attachments of the slaves are very strong. They cling far 
more fondly than whites do to the " old place." They want to be free ; 
and have a strong, though vague feeling, that freedom will, some- 
how, and at some time, come to them. Some are restrained from 
flight by moral qualities which are in themselves excellent. They 
fondly love their families. They often have personal and tender attach- 
ment to their masters, and more often to his children and family. They 
have a feeling of loyalty, and shrink from the idea of betraying trust. 
Others again are restrained by a feeling of religious'" obligation, having 
been taught Scripture in such garbled and distorted form, as to make 
them believe it enjoins obedience to masters, even if obedience leads to 
all manner of sin. Finally, it is the testimony of intelligent men from 



IV 

the Slave States, who know the Canadian refugees, that they are fair 
representatives of the colored population, free and slave, of the Border 
and Middle States. 

No ! the refugees in Canada earn a living, and gather property ; they 
marry and respect women ; they build churches, and send their children 
to schools ; they improve in manners and morals, — not because they are 
" picked men," but simply because they are free men. Each of them 
may say, as millions will soon say, — " When I was a slave, I spake as a 
slave, I understood as a slave, I thought as a slave ; but when I became 
a free man, I put away slavish things." 

The writer desires tb express his thanks for the kind and courteous 
manner in which gentlemen, in various parts of Canada, endeavored to 
facilitate ^BBg^ inquiries. All were civil and kind ; but Messrs. Thomas 
Henning and McGann, of Toronto ; Dr. Litchfield, of King- 
ston ; Rev. Hiram Wilson and Dr. Mack, of St. Catherines ; Rev. 
Mr. King, of Buxton ; Mr. McCullum and Mr. Wm. H. Howard, of 
Hamilton ; Dr. A. T. Jones and Mr. Thojias Webb, of London ; Mr. 
J. W. Sparks, of Chatham, were very useful. 

But he would especially acknowledge his obligation to Mr. J. M. W. 
Yekrinton, Secretary of the Commission, who accompanied him as 
Reporter, and who, by uncommon intelligence and tact, assisted in gath- 
ering a great deal of valuable information. This is added to the large 
body of evidence concerning the condition of the colored people in 
various parts of the United States, gathered by the Freedmen's Inquiry 
Commission, and will be given with their final Report. 

S. G. H. 
Boston, December 31, 1863. 



Messrs. Kobert Dale Owen and James McKaye, 

Of the Freeclmens Inquirj/ Commission : 

Gentlemen, — The undersigned respectfully asks leave 
to make through you, to the Secretary of War, the 
followmg Heport of his observations of the condition of 
the colored people of Canada West. 

Tlie fiict that many thousands of blacks and mulat- 
toes, who have fled from slavery, or from social oppres- 
sion in this country, are living in Upper Canada as free 
men, with all the rights and privileges of British sub- 
jects, is too important, to be overlooked by a Commission 
of Incpiiry into the condition and capacity of the colored 
population of the United States, just set free. 

These emigrants, or rather exiles, are fair representa- 
tives of our colored people. They are in about the 
same proportion of pure Africans, half-breeds, quarter- 
breeds, octoroons, and of others in whom the dark shade 
grows fainter and fainter, until it lingers in the finger- 
nails alone. The greater part have been slaves, or are 
the children of slaves ; but many were born free, of free 
parents. They have been, during many years, in about 
the same condition as that in Avhich our newly-freed 
people now find themselves. They have been trying the 
experiment, for their race, of then' capacity for self- 
support and self-guidance, under the tegis of the law, 
indeed, but amidst an unsympathizing population, just 
as our freedmen are about to do. 



2 



It became very desirable, therefore, to learn the 
history, condition, and prospects of the colored popula- 
tion of Canada, in view of the light which might be 
thrown upon the general subject which the Commission is 
to investigate. But this could not be done without per- 
sonal inspection and careful study. The undersigned, 
therefore, with your consent, undertook this, and pro- 
ceeded to Canada, in company with Mr. J. M, W. 
Yerrintoh, Secretary and Reporter of the Commission. 

We visited all the large towns, in which the, colored 
population exist in considerable numbers, St. Catherines, 
Hamilton, London, Toronto, Chatham, Buxton, Windsor, 
Maiden, Colchester, and spent in each all the time neces- 
sary to get a good idea of the people. We inspected 
many small settlements and detached farms, occupied by 
colored people. W^e saw the mayors and city officials in 
most of the cities, the sheriffs, jailers, constables, the 
schoolmasters and the clergy, and took their testimony. 
We also saw and conversed with a great many colored 
people at their houses, shops and farms. 

The testimony of all these persons was taken down 
carefully, word for word, and is preserved. Some of it 
will be introduced into this Report ; — more, indeed, of 
that given by refugees than may at fii'st seem called for ; 
but it is to be considered that all the influences which 
formerly acted upon them, and moulded their character, 
have been until within a few months acting upon the 
colored population, whose condition and prospects the 
Commission is to study. 

The negro, like other men, naturally desires to live in 
the light of truth ; but he hides in the shadow of false- 



hood, more or less deeply, according as his safety or 
welfare seems to requke it. Other things equal, the 
freer a people, the more truthful ; and only the perfectly 
free and fearless are perfectly truthful. 

Already the negroes m Canada show the effect of free- 
dom and of fearlessness. 

" I served twenty-five years in slavery," testifies WiUiam 
Grose, " and about five I have been free. I feel now like a man, 
while before I felt more as though I were but a brute. When 
in the United States, if a white man spoke to me, I would feel 
frightened, whether I were in the right or wrong ; but now it is 
quite a different thing : if a white man speaks to me, I can 
look him right in the eyes, — if he were to insult me, I could 
give him an answer. I have the rights and privileges of any 
other man. I am now living with my wife and children, and 
doing very well."* 

Said David West, a man of religious character : — 

" I myself was treated well in slavery. I hired my time, and 
paid my master two hundred dollars a year, but my master died, 
and I heard that I was to be sold, which would separate mc from 
my family, and knowing no law which would defend me, I 
concluded to come away. ******* 

" I have known slaves to be hungry, but when their master 
asked them if they had enough, they would, through fear, say 
' Yes.' So if asked if they wish to be free, they will say 
' No.' I knew a case where there was a division of between 
fifty and sixty slaves among heirs, one of whom intended to set 
free her part. So, wishing to consult them, she asked of such 
and such ones, if they would like to be free, and they all said 
' No : ' — for if they had said yes, and had then fallen to the 
other heirs, they would be sold, — and so they said 'No,' against 
their own consciences. But there will be a time when all will 
be judged."! 

* The Refugee, or Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada, by Benjamin 
Drew. 

t Ibid. 



While, therefore, the testimony of negroes in Canada 
must be taken with due allowance for liability to error 
and disposition to exaggerate, it must not be considered 
as testimony taken from the same class of persons in the 
Southern States would be. There the negroes are held 
to be untruthful, almost as a matter of course. In 
Canada, they are not. In the South, they have motives 
for lying which do not affect them m Canada ; for, in the 
latter, it is evident that they have the most entire reliance 
upon the protection which the law gives them. Complain 
as they may about other matters, they all admit that ; 
and it is a common remark with them, that they are not 
now afraid to say things that are true, for " the law will 
bear them out in it." 

Said Leonard liarrod : — 

" A man can get more information in Canada about slavery, 
than lie can in tlie South. There I would have told you to ask 
master, because I would have been afraid to trust a white man : 
I would have been afraid that you would tell my master. Many 
a time my master has told me things to try me. Among others, 
he said he thought of moving up to Cincinnati, and asked me 
if I did not want to go. I v,^onld tell him, ' No ! I do n't want 
to go to none of your free countries ! ' Then he 'd laugh, — 
but 1 did want to come — surely I did. A colored man tehs the 
truth here, — there he is afraid to."* 

The testimony of these refugees was given with simpli- 
city and apparent honesty. It was given by persons not 
connected with each other ; and mostly by persons not 
acquainted with each other. Taken as a wdiole, and sus- 
tained by the testimony collected from over a hundred 

* Drew, p. 310. 



refugees, by Mr. Drew, several years ago, it bears strong 
internal e\T.dence of truth. It is a fearful record of the 
meanness, the vices and the crimes into which men are ■ 
apt to be drawn, when they are wicked enough, or weak 
enough, to commit the folly and sin of holding their 
fellow-men as slaves. 

From the information thus giii,hered, from all sorts of 
men, the undersigned endeavored to form a just opinion 
of the material, moral and social condition of the colored 
people of Canada West. 

He endeavored, moreover, to gather the statistics of 
population, of property, of crime, of mortality, and the 
like. This was difficult, because the law does not recog- 
nize distinction of color, and the official records do not 
show it, except in the prison returns. For instance, the 
roll of tax-payers does not distinguish between whites 
and blacks ; but the local officers generally know every 
individual, and by their assistance, which was generally 
rendered very cheerfully, the exact number of colored 
tax-payers, the amount of their tax, and the comparative 
amount paid by blacks and whites, in several places, were 
ascertained. 

With this statement of the object of the inc]iiiry, and 
of the sources of information, the undersigned proceeds 
to report the result of his observations and thonghts upon 
this remarkable emigration, under the following heads : — 

First. The history of the emigration, its causes, its 
progress, and the actual number of the emigrants. 

Second. The physical condition of the emigrants, as 
affected by climate, soil, intermarriage, and the like. 

Third. Their material condition, as shown by their 



property, taxes, pauperism, and the appearance of their 
houses and farms. 

Fourth. Their mental and moral condition, as shown 
by the general character they bear, the condition of their 
schools, churches, societies, and their mode of life. 

Fifth. General inferences, to be drawn from the expe- 
rience of the colored pQpple in Canada, as to the future 
condition of those in the United States. 

Liberty will be taken to enlarge upon such matters as 
seem to throw any light upon the difficult problems 
which must soon be solved in the United States, by 
reason of the important changes in the legal and social 
condition of so many of its inhabitants. 

Section 1. — History. 

Canada has not been long a place of refuge for the 
oppressed. The Indians, imitating our pious ancesto:ys, 
stole or bought negroes, and held them as slaves. Sophia 
Pooley, who was living very recently, though over ninety, 
says : — 

" I was stolen from my parents when I was seven years old, 
and brought to Canada ; that was long before the American 
Revolution. There were hardly any white people in Canada 
then — nothing here but Indians and wild beasts. Many a deer 
I have helped catch on the lakes in a canoe : I was a woman 
grown when the first governor of Canada came from England : 
that was Governor Simcoe. 

" My parents were slaves in New York State. My master's 
sons-in-law, Daniel Cutwaters and Simon Knox, came into the 
garden where my sister and I were playing among the currant 
bushes, tied their handkerchiefs over our mouths, carried us to ' 
a vessel, put us in the hold, and sailed up the river. I know 



not how far nor how long — it was dark there all the time. 
Then we came by land. I remember when we came to Genesee, 
— there were Indian settlements tliere, — Onondagas, Senecas, 
and Oneidas. I guess I was the first colored girl bronght into 
Canada. The white men sold us at Niagara to old Indian 
Brant, the king. I lived with old Brant about twelve or 
thirteen years, as nigh as I can tell. Brant lived part of the 
time at Mohawk, part at Ancaster, part at Preston, then called 
Lower Block : the Upper Block was at Snyder's Mills. While 
I lived with old Brant, we caught the deer. It was at Dundas, 
at the outlet. We would let the hounds loose, and when we 
heard them bark, we would run for the canoe — Peggy, and 
Mary, and Katy — Brant's daugliters and I. Brant's sons, 
Joseph and Jacob, would wait on the shore to kill the deer 
when we fetched him in. 

" King Brant's tliird wife, my mistress, was a barbarous crea- 
ture. She could talk English, but she would not. She would 
tell me in Indian to do things, and then hit me with any thing 
that came to hand, because I did not understand her. I have a 
scar on my head, from a wound she gave me with a hatchet ; 
and this long scar over my eye is where she cut me with a 
knife. * .* * * ]>rant was very angry, when 

he came home, at what she had done, and punished her as if 
she had been a child. Said he, ' You know I adopted her as 
one of the family, and now you arc trying to put all the work 
on her.' • 

" I liked the Indians pretty well in their place ; some of them 
were very savage, some friendly. I have seen them have the 
war dance, in a ring, with only a cloth about them, and painted 
up. They did not look ridiculous ; they looked savage — enough 
to frighten any body. One would take a bowl, and rub the 
edge with a knotted stick ; then they would raise their toma- 
hawks and whoop. Brant had two colored men for slaves; one 
of them was the father of John Patten, who lives over yonder ; 
the other called himself Simon Ganseville. There was but one 
other Indian that I knew who owned a slave. I had no care to 
get my freedom. 

" At twenty years old, I was sold by Brant to an Englishman 
in Ancaster, for one hundred dollars. His name was Samuel 



Hatt, and I lived with him seven years ; then the white people 
said I was free, and put me up to running away. He did not 
stop me ; he said he could ^jot take the law into his own hands. 
Tlien I lived in what is now Waterloo. I mari-ied Robert 
Pooley, a black man. He ran away with a white woman ; he 
is dead."* 

The French tolerated the " Institution." There are 
sad. monuments of the barbarous system still standmg. 
At Maiden, you may see " the bloody tree " used as a 
whipping-post for slaves. • The English, when they 
seized Canada, not only tolerated the existing system of 
slavery, but expressly provided for importing negroes 
from Africa and elsewhere, by an Act in the thirtieth 
year of George III., " for encouraging new settlers in 
his Majesty's Colonies and Plantations in North America." 
By virtue of this Act, negroes were imported and held 
as slaves. It is a remarkable fact, that some escaped 
from their masters and fled, to the United. .States, to enjoy 
freedom there. A case of this kind was related to us by 
Mrs. Amy Martin. She says : — 

" My father's name was James Ford. He was born in Vir- 
ginia, but was sold to Kentucky, and was there taken by the 
Indians. He was eighty-six years old when he died, and would 
be over one hundred years old, if he were now living. The 
Indians brought my father to Canada — I think to Fort Maiden. 
He was held here by the Indians as a slave, and sold, I think he 
said, to a British officer, who was a very cruel master, and he 
escaped from him, and came to Ohio. He got off" in a sail-boat, 
and came to Cleveland, I believe, first, and made his way from 
there to Erie, where he settled. After I came over here, I 
married a man who was also a fugitive, and the old folks moved 
over here to be with me in their old age. When w^e were in 
Erie, we lived a little way out of the village, and our house was 

* Drew, p. 192. 



a place of refuge for fugitives — a station of the underground 
railroad. Sometimes there would be thirteen or fourteen fugi- 
tives at our place. My parents used to do a great deal towards 
helping them on to Canada. They were sometimes pursued by 
their masters, and often advertised ; and their masters would 
come righl to Erie. We used to be pretty careful, and never 
got into any trouble on that account, that I know of. Tlie 
fugitives would be told to come to our house." 

The act of thirtieth George III. was in full and 
bmding force until July 9, 1793. Then the Provm- 
cial Government declared as follows : " That whereas 
it is unjust that a people who enjoy freedom by law 
should encourage the introduction of slaves, and whereas 
it is highly expedient to abolish slavery in this Province 
so far as the same may gradually be done without violating 
private p'opertif^' &c., therefore the authority " to grant 
license for importing any negro or negroes into this 
Province is hereby repealed." 

The 2d section provided that nothing in the Act 
should extend to contracts already made. 

The 3d section provided that children born of female 
slaves, after the passage of the Act, should remain in the 
service of the owner of the mother until twenty-five 
years of age, when they should be discharged. It further 
provided for registration of births, and penalties for 
neglecting the same. 

S^tion 4th provided remedies against undue detention 
of such persons beyond the age of twenty-five : also for 
the freedom of children born to them while under twenty- 
five years of age. 

Section 5th provided for security to be given by 
masters liberating their slaves, that such persons should 



10 

not be chargeable to the piibhc ; but no part of the Act 
provided for the freedom of any slave born before July 9, 
1793 ; nor has any subsequent Colonial legislation 
done it. 

Nothing in this Act affected the status of agiy negro 
slave born previous to the date of it. On the contrary, 
the 2d section provides that nothing in it shall disturb 
existing relations. The legislation was prospective 
merely ; and there has been none subsequently. There- 
fore a slave born before July 1, 179e3, would have 
been legally a slave until the general abolition of slavery 
in all the British colonies by act of Parliament- in 1838. 
Thus slavery had a legal existence in Canada many years 
after it had been abolished in several States of the 
United States. 

Massachusetts abolished it by her Bill of Hights in 
1780; New Hampshire in 1792 ; New York in 1799; 
New Jersey in 1820 ; and it was virtually abolished in 
the other Northern States before 1830. 

But though the Canadian Parliament, with the usual 
veneration of legislators for things hallowed by age, 
merely scotched slavery, public opinion (and the cold) 
w^ould not let it drag out its legal life, but killed it before 
the beginning of this century. 

For several years, the existence of freedom in Canada 
did not affect slavery in the United States. No\ntand 
then a slave was intelligent and bold enough to cross the 
vast forest between the Ohio and the Lakes, and find a 
refuge beyond them. Such cases, however, were, at 
first, very rare, and knowledge of them was confined to 
few ; but they increased, early in this century ; and 



11 

the rumor gradually spread among the slaves of the South- 
ern States, that there was, far away under the north star, 
a land where the flag of the Union did not float ; where 
the law declared all men free and equal ; where the 
people respected the law, and the government, if need 
be, enforced it. 

The distance was great ; the path difficult and danger- 
ous ; and the land, instead of milk and honey, abounded 
in snow and ice. It was hardly a place in which white 
men could live, much less black men ; who, moreover, 
were told monstrous stories . about it, in order to deter 
them froin fleeing thither. 

" After we began to hear about Canada," said J. Lindsey, 
" our master used to tell us all manner of stories about what a 
dreadful place it was ; and we believed some of them, but some 
we didn't. When they told us that we must pay half of our 
wages to the Queen, every day, it didn't seem strange nor 
wrong ; but when they said it was so cold there that men going- 
mowing had to break the ice with their scythes, I didn't believe 
that, because it was onreasonable. I knew grass wouldn't grow 
where ice was all the time." . " I was told before I left Virginia," 
said Dan Fackart, " I have heard it as common talk, that the 
wild geese were so common in Canada, that they would scratch 
a man's eyes out ; that corn wouldn't grow there, nor any thing 
else but rice ; that every thing they had there was imported." 

Xothing invited the negroes to this cold region, except 
the still small voice of Freedom ; but some of them heard 
and answered that. They braved the imaginary dangers, 
overcame the real ones ; and many found that resolute and 
industrious men, even if black, could live and enjoy the 
rights of men in Canada. 

Some, not content with personal freedom and happi- 
ness, went secretly back to their old homes, and brought 
away their wives and children at much peril and cost. 



12 

The rumor widened ; the fugitives so increased, that 
a secret pathway, since called the underground railroad, 
was soon formed, which ran by the huts of blacks in the 
Slave States, and the houses of good Samaritans in the 
Free States ; and they placed by its borders helps which 
the wayfarer could find, even in the night. Hundreds 
trod this path every year, but they did not attract much 
public notice. 

The slaves have always instinctively felt that the 
enemies of our country must be then* friends, and that 
war time was good time for them. Consequently, they 
improved the opportunity of the war of 1812-14, and 
escaped into Mexico and Canada. The loss of " prop- 
erty " became so great in the following years, that in 
1826, Mr. Clay, Secretary of State, instructed Mr. Gal- 
latin, our Minister to St. James, to propose to the British 
Government a stipulation for " a mutual surrender of all 
persons held to service or labor, under the laws of either 
parti), ivho escape into the territory of the other.'' 

" Our object," said the Secretary, " is to provide for 
a growing evil." 

Early in 1827, he again called Mr. Gallatin's attention 
to the matter, informing him that a treaty had been 
negotiated with Mexico, by which she had engaged to 
return our " runaway slaves."* The Minister was to press 
upon the British government the importance of the stipu- 
lations about mutual surrender, in view of the danger of 
the escape of slaves from the West India Islands to our 
shores. Thus the great Republic was not only to change 

* The treaty was negotiated, but the Mexican Senate refused to confirm it. — 
Jay'ti View. 



13 

its fundamental policy of being a place of refuge for all 
the oppressed, but try to shut up such places elsewhere. 

In July of the same year, Mr. Gallatin communicated 
the manly conclusion of the British government, that 
" it was utterly impossible for thetn to agree to a stipulation 
for the surrender of fugitive slaves" 

But the power behind the White House, which ever 
directed the national policy in the interests of slavery, 
persisted in its purpose. 

On the tenth of May, 1828, a resolution was passed 
the United States House of Representatives, without a 
division of the House, " requesting the President to open a 
negotiation with the British government in the view to obtain 
an arrangement whereby fugitive slaves, who have taken 
refuge in the Canadian Provinces of that government, may 
be surrendered by the functionaries thereof to their masters, 
upon their making satisfactory proof of their ownership of 
said slaves." 

June 13, 1828, Mr. Clay transmitted this resolution 
to our new Minister, and agam spoke of the evil " as a 
growing one, well calculated to disturb the good neigh- 
borhood which we are deshous of cultivating with the 
adjacent British Pro\dnces." 

Eager to seize their ]3rey, the slaveholders could not 
brook diplomatic delay, but at the very next session 
procured the passage of a resolve calling on the President 
to communicate the result of the negotiation ; and he 
show^ed that he had been swift to run before their wishes, 
by sending in a mass of documents bearing upon the 
subject. 

The result of the negotiation was, as Mr. Barbour, our 



u 

new Minister, wrote October 2d, 1828, that Lord Aberdeen 
insisted " that the law of Parliament gave freedom to 
every slave ivho ejected his landing upon British ground."* 

Tims the Monarchy rebuked the RepubHc ; spurned 
the proposal of a mutual betrayal of exiles, and assured 
the sanctity of the Canadian asylum to fugitive slaves. 

Meantime, free colored people, mulattoes, offspring of 
negroes and whites, were multiplying rapidly, and spread- 
ing over the whole Union, These half-breeds, if not 
equal to the whites in mental force, were not stupid, nor 
lazy, but thrifty and shrewd ; and they prospered in 
worldly things. Their prosperity begat the desire of 
security for their freedom, which they could not have in 
the South ; and for social rights, which they could not 
have, either in the North or South. The barbarous legis- 
lation, in some of the so-called free States, bore very 
hardly upon these people. Therefore, they too began to 
look to Canada as a place of refuge, j* This gave another 
impetus to the emigration. 

Meantime, the steady progress of the slave power 
toward complete domination of the whole land culminated 
in the passage of the Fugitive Slave Bill. This opened 
all the United States to slave hunters, and put in peril the 
liberty of every one who had even the faintest tinge 
of negro blood. Of course it gave great increase to the 
emigration, and free-born blacks fled with the slaves from 

* State Papers 1827-8, Vol. 1, Doc. 19. 

f " Owing, among other causes, to the extremes of climate in the more 
northern States, and in other States to expulsive enactments of the Legisla- 
tures, the free colored show a decrease of numbers during the past ten years 
according to the census, in the following ten States." — U. S. Census, Prelim. 
Rep., '60, p. 6. 



15 

a land in which their birthriofht of freedom was no longer 

* 

secure.* 

Such is a brief outline of the general causes and his- 
tory of the remarkable exodus of colored people from 
the United States. 

It is impossible to ascertain the number of exiles who 
have found refuge in Canada since 1800 ; but according 
to the most careful estimates, it must be between thirty 
and forty thousand. 

It is difficult, moreover, to ascertain the present num- 
ber. The census of 1850 is confused. It puts the 
number in Upper Canada at 2,502 males, and 2,167 
females. f But in a note it is stated, " there are about 
8,000 colored persons in Western Canada.^ This word 
about is an admission of the uncertamty ; and, as if to 
make that uncertainty greater, the same census in another 
part puts the number in Western Canada at 4,669.§ 

The abstract of the census of 18G0 makes the 
colored population to be only 11,223. Doubtless, in 
some districts, the distinction between colored and 
whites was not made. At any rate, the number is 
greatly under-stated, because in several cities, the 
records show that there must be a greater num- 
ber than is given in the census. For instance, in St. 

. . . * " New York has increaseS from 3,097,391 to 3,880,735, exhibiting 
an augmentation of 783,341 inhabitants, being at the rate of 25.29 per cent. 
The free colored population has fallen off 64 since 1850, a diminution to be 
accounted for probably by the operation of the fugitive slave taw, which 
induced many colored persons to migrate further North." — U. S. Census, '60, 
Prelim. Rep., p. 4. 

f See Census Report of the Canadas, 1850, Vol. 1., p. 317. 

t Ibid., Vol. 1., p. 37. 

§ Ibid., Vol. 2., p. 3. 



16 



Catherines, C. P. Camp, Town Clerk, said to us : — " The 
Government Census is all wrong (about our place). They 
made the population 6,284 hy last Census ; hut ive took the 
Census a year ago and made it 7,007." 

Indeed, the town records show that there are 112 
colored tax payers ! In the Government School, the 
attendance of colored children in winter is from 130 
to HO. About forty were attending one private school. 
The inference from these data would be that the colored 
population is, as was represented to us by Elder Perry 
and others, about 700. The Census makes it only 472 ! 

In Hamilton are three colored churches, two of which 
we attended. The colored population is probably over 
500, but the Census makes it only 62 ! 

In Toronto, Mr. George A. Barber, Secretary of the 
Board of School Trustees, furnished us a certified copy 
of the number of colored residents, amounting to 934, 
but the Census makes it only 510. 

The Mayor of London, C. W., estimated the number 
of families among the colored people at 75, but the 
Census makes the whole colored population only 36 ! 

There has been no movement of the colored population 
sufficient to explain such discrepancies, and the conclusion 
is that the Census of 1850, ^nd that of 1860, included 
some of the colored people in the white column. 

The report of the Anti-Slavery Society of Toronto, in 
1852, estimated the colored population of Canada West 
at 30,000. 

Intelligent people, acquamted with the matter, estimate 
the present population at from 20,000 to 30,000. Our 



own calculation is, that it does not fall short of 15,000, 
nor exceed 20,000 * 

However imperfect these latter estimates may be, it is 
evident, from the number known to have entered Canada, 
that the births have never equalled the deaths, and 
therefore, there has been no natural increase, but on the 
contrary, a natural loss ; and that without constant immi- 
gration, the colored population must diminish and soon 
disappear. 

Section 2. — Phi/slcal Condition, Sfc. 

Most of the colored people of Canada were born in 
the United States. In order, therefore, to understand 
their physical character, we should look to the stock 
whence they sprang, and to the changes wrought upon 
it by a colder climate and new mode of life. 

The proportion of pure Africans among the colored 
people of the United States is very small indeed. Even 
upon tlie Southern plantations they are rare. Those 
inlported from Africa are soon aifected in their appear- 
ance, especially in that of the skin, by the climate 
and by slave life ; and their direct descendants, owing 
to mixture of individuals from different tribes, rapidly 
lose their tribal peculiarities. But thek direct descend- 
ants ai'e comparatively few ; the mulattoes, offspring of 
the cross between negroes and whites, are more numer- 
ous, and they, of course, depart more widely from the 
original type. 

During the early period of our history, Africans, 
mamly Congoes, were landed all along the. Atlantic 

* See Appendix, Note 1. 



18 

coast. The importation into the Northern Colonies was 
never large ; it soon grew less, and ceased entirely before 
the close of the last century ; while the importation into 
the Southern regions, always larger, was kept up longer ; 
and some have been smuggled in within a very few 
years. 

The crossing with the white race immediately began 
every where, and although it did not last long in the 
North, it has been kept up vigorously in the South to the 
present time. 

From this crossing of races came that mulattoism, 
which, unfortunately, is so wide spread among the whole 
population of the United States, and which impairs the 
purity of the national blood, taken as a whole. 

Now, the condition of the Canadian emigrants, who 
are mostly mulattoes, goes to confirm what besides is a 
natural inference, that if this evil had not been fostered 
by social influences, it would have been checked, and in 
time, cured. 

This certainly could have been done, because the mulat- 
toes of the United States are not a race, but a breed ; and 
breeds are produced, modified, and may be made to 
disappear, by social agencies. Proofs of the potency of 
these agencies abound. The careful observer will find 
them in the demand and supply, and in the geographical 
distribution of the productions of the breeding States. 
Different kinds of colored men are demanded, and the 
supply meets the demand. Slender, light-built quad- 
roons, or octoroons, are wanted for domestic purjDOses ; 
dark and heavier men for the field. Black women are 
wanted for their strength and fruitfulness ; yellow ones 



19 

for their beauty and comparative barrenness. If they are 
not wanted where they are raised, they are taken to the 
proper market. Henry Clay did not like to testify against 
"the institution," yet he said, in a speech before the 
Kentucky Coloniza?tion Society, in 1829 : " It is believed 
that nowhere in the farming portion of the United States 
would slave labor be generally employed, if the proprietors 
were not tempted to raise slaves by the high price of" the 
southern markets, which keeps it up in then* own." 
The consciousness of any purpose in all this may be indig- 
nantly repelled ; but the commercial laws act ; and there 
are those who study them, and trade upon them, as 
much as the breeders of cattle do. The proofs of this 
are abundant. 

Thus commercial interests disturb, to a certain extent, 
the natural laws ; for there is in the social system, as 
in the individual body, a recuperative principle which 
tends to bring men back to the normal condition of their 
race. No purely natural causes could have multipUed 
and perpetuated such a breed in such a climate as ours. 
On the contrary, there is reason to think that the 
offspring of the cross between the small number of pure 
Africans formerly slaves in the Northern States and the 
whites would have dwindled, and by this time nearly 
disappeared, by reason of the effect of climate, of further 
crossing between half-breeds, and their comparative in- 
fecundity, but for continvial accessions from the South. 
There, in a more favorable climate, a fruitfulness greater 
than follows intercourse between mulattoes was and is 
kept up, by constant crossing with the white race. 

From this central source in the South, then, comes the 



20 

flood of aclulteratecl blood, which spreads, whitenmg a 
little as it flows, but which reaches the. North, and 
helps to retain there the taint which was fast vanishing. 

Statistics carefully kept in some Northern cities, where 
mulattoes intermarry among themselves, and where 
crossing with whites is not common, show that births 
among colored people are less numerous than the 
deaths ! But in the South, the affinities of race, the 
partial infecundity of hybrids, and other natural causes 
v/hich tend to purify the national blood, are counteracted 
by social causes, among which is the market value of 
the off'spring ; in other words, the premium set upon 
hybrids. 

At the beginning of this century, the total number 
of colored people in the United States was 1,002,798, of 
whom 109,194: were free; and in 1^60, it reached 
4,-135,709, of whom -182,122 were free. 

They have spread over most of the country, the density 
of their population, and the darkness of their com- 
plexions-, diminishing northward. 

From this population came the colored people of 
Canada, who are mainly of two classes, slaves who 
escaped from bondage or freed men who fled from social 
oppression in the Slave States, and free men who were 
driven by social oppression, and iniquitous legislation, 
from the Free States. 

Taken as a whole, they resemble in physical aspect 
the colored people of the Middle States rather than 
those of the extreme Southern, or the extreme North- 
ern States. They present about the same proportion 
of blacks and mulattoes, shading ofl" to white. 



21 

They are slightly built, narrow-chested, light-limbed, 
and do not abound in thews and sinews. They are 
mostly of lymphatic temperament, and show strong 
marks of scrofulous or strumous disposition. This is 
discernable in the pulpy appearance of certain parts 
of the face and neck ; m the spongy gums, and glister- 
ing teeth. 

They are peculiarly disposed to the sort of diseases to 
which persons of this temperament are most liable ; and 
the climate makes the development of such diseases 
more certain. The children are subject to mesenteric 
and other glandular diseases. The young are liable 
to softening of tubercles ; and there is a general preva- 
lence of phthisical diseases. 

The most reliable medical opinions are that these 
people are unfavorably affected by the climate. 

If, indeed, one should consider only the opinion and 
testimony of the people themselves, he would conclude 
that they bear the climate very well, and are as healthy 
and as prolific as the whites. But the opinion of the 
common inhabitants of any place respecting its salubrity 
is often not worth much. They who give it, find them- 
selves alive and well ; they see a few old men and 
women about, and expect to grow old like them ; theii* 
neighbors are alive and well ; the sick are out of sight, 
and the dead out of mind. 

If we seek the focus of any plague or epidemic, com- 
mon people are apt to tell us that it is not in their 
precise locality ; it is " over yonder " in some other 
place ; or if there be a few victims in their town, 
they must be strangers and unacclimated persons ; or, at 



22 

worst, those who had peculiar dispositions to that par- 
ticular disease, of which disposition they themselves do 
not partake. 

So the colored people of Canada say the climate suits 
them ; that they are very well ; that they bear as many 
children as whites do, and rear them as well. But 
the opinion of the most intelligent white persons is 
different. 

Many intelligent physicians who have practised among 
both classes, say that the colored people are feebly organ- 
ized ; that the scrofulous temperament prevails among 
them ; that the climate tends to development of tuber- 
culous diseases ; that they are unprolific and short-lived. 

From an abundance of such testimony, the following, 
given by two eminent physicians, one in the West, the 
other in the eastern part of Upper Canada, is selected 
as among the most reliable. Dr. Fisher, physician at 
the Provincial Lunatic Asylum, says : — 

" I think the colored people stand the cHmate very badly. 
In a very short tune lung disease is developed, and they go by 
phthisis. The majority do not pass forty years. Of course, 
there are exceptions. They die off fast. I suppose I have had 
thirty colored people here with little children, with scrofu- 
lous disease, extending as far as ulceration of the temporal 
bone. Then they are a good deal subject to rheumatism. 
They bear a great many children, but raise only about one-half 
of them, I think. The children are generally weakly and 
puny ; not so strong as our white children. A great many of 
them die in childhood. The principal disease is tubercular 
deposition of the stomach and intestines." 

Dr. T. Mack, of St. Catherines, says : — 

"It strikes me that the mixed races are the most luihealthy, 
and the pure blacks the least so. The disease they suffer 



23 



most from is pulmonary — more than general tubercular; 
and where there is not real tubercular affection of the lungs, 
there are bronchitis and pulmonary affections. I have the idea 
that they die out when mixed, and that this climate will com- 
pletely efface them. I think the pure blpcks will live. I have 
come to this conclusion, not from any statistics, but from per- 
sonal observation. I know A, B, and C, who are mulattoes, 
and they are unhealtliy ; and I know pure blacks, who do not 
suffer from disease, and recover from the smallpox, and skin 
diseases, and yellow fever, which are very fatal to mulattoes. 
I think there is a great deal of strumous diathesis developed in 
the mixed race, produced by change of climate." 

The vital statistics of the colored people in Canada 
have not been kept with sufficient accuracy by the 
official authorities to warrant any conclusions ; but they 
have been kept in some parts of the Northern States 
where the climatic influences are at least as unfavorable 
as those of Canada. 

Take, for instance, the following extract from the 
report of the Registrar of the City of Boston : — 

" The following table will present, in an interesting form, the 
number of births, marriages and deaths among the colored 
population in each of the last eight years : 



Births. 


Marriages. 


29 


35 


50 


46 


34 


34 


24 


32 


46 


37 


29 


53 


47 


41 


45 


38 


304 


316 



Deaths. 



1855, . 

1856, . 

18.57, . 

18.58, . 

1859, . 

1860, . 

1861, . 

1862, . 

Totals, 



63 
71 
73 
60 

58 
68 
60 
47 



500 



24 



"It will be noticed, that in each of the years named, the 
colored deaths exceeded the births ; and that in 1855, 1858 and 
1860, the latter were even less than the marriages ! Dnring 
the whole period, the deaths exceeded the births by nearly two 
hundred, and the marriages by twelve. Estimating the white 
population at 180,000, the proportion of births to the whole 
number is as one to 34.50 ; while the ratio of colored births is 
as one to 49, in a population of 2,200. It is not the less inter- 
esting to observe, that while this difFerenco in the natural 
growth of the two races is so strikingly in favor of the v.-liite, 
the marriages among the colored race were in the ratio of one 
to 58 of the population, while among the former they were 
only as one to 87.54 ! 

"Thus it is shown, that in each of the aspects in which this 
subject may be viewed, the colored race seems, so far as this 
city is concerned, to be doomed to extinction." 

J. R. Bartlett, Secretary of State for Rhode Island, 
commenting on the State Registration Reports, says : — 

"These Reports illustrate the peculiarities of the colored 
race, as it exists in this State. Rhode Island has had a higher 
proportion of colored persons than any other New England 
State. This proportion is lessening from year to year, in spite 
of a slight and concealed current of immigration from Southern 
States. The mortality of the colored is about twice as great, in 
proportion, as that among the white. In a period of nearly five 
years, the deaths of colored persons have been fifty-seven 
more than the births of colored children."* 

The Seventh Registration Report says : " The colored 
race would at no distant day become extinct in Rhode 
Island, if it were not maintained by immigration."j- 

Col. (now General) Tullock, and Staff Surgeon Balfour, 

* 5th Registration Report, State of Rhode Island, pp. 47, 48. 
t 7th Report, p. 64. 



25 

of the British Army, published four volumes of military 
statistics, between 1848 and 1851, which are admitted to 
be very valuable. 

The first, in a MS. letter dated November 25, 1863,, 
says : — 

" It was shown by reference to the mortality among the slave 
population in Jamaica and the West Indies, for a series o-f years, 
that when not recruited by fresh importations, that race would 
probably become extinct in little more than a century ; an 
anticipation which is now, I believe, in the course of being 
realized, except on the Island of Barbadoes. 

" The annual mortality of the negroes averaged, at that time, 
about three per cent, among the male population of all ages in 
these colonies ; it was still higher in the Mauritius, as also in the 
French settlements of Bourbon, Martinique, Guyana, and Seue- 
gal._ You are aware that with so high a mortality among 
persons of all ages, it was impossible for any race materially to 
increase, or even to keep up its numbers, especially as a further 
extension of the inquiry showed that this loss fell chiefly on 
the adult population ; children luider ton years of age being 
usually as healthy as those of English parentage in this country. 
In illustration of the loss among these adults, even under the 
most favorable circumstances, I pointed out that in the West 
India Regiments and Black Pioneers, men between the ages of 
twenty and forty-five, the loss was usually four per cent, in the 
West Indies, three per cent, in Jamaica, and that even on the 
west coast of Africa, the latter rate prevailed, while in the 
Mauritius, among a similar class, it rose to nearly four per cent., 
and still higher in Ceylon and Gibralter, where negro troops were 
for a short time employed. 

" This high mortality among the negro race was found chiefly 
to arise from their extreme susceptibility to diseases of the lungs ; 
indeed, it will be seen by the returns of total diseases annexed 
to the volumes just referred to, that as many died from them 
alone, as from all other diseases ; so far as my experience goes, 
no race has ever shown less adaptability for a variety of climates. 
In the Southern States of America alone does there appear a 
fair prospect of their being able to increase and keep up tlieir 
4 



26 

numbers, probably in consequence of the climate being favorable 
to those diseases by which they are elsewhere most affected. 

" With regard to the mulatto race, I have few facts to offer, 
because, as a general rule, they are seldom employed in our 
array ; cliiefly owing to the loant of that physical stamina which 
renders the pure negro better fitted for the duties of a soldier 
or a laborer. So far as I am aware, our colonies possess no 
separate recoi-ds of the mortality 40 which mulattoes are sub- 
ject, but in some of the French Colonies before referred to, 
where the distinction has been kept up, the death rate appears 
to be a medium between that of the negro and the naturalized 
white settler. If a fair comparison could be drawn from the 
rate among the Eurasian or half castes in India, it would be 
decidedly unfavorable to the longevity of the mixed race, as it 
is very rarely that any are found to arrive at a third generation." 

Dr. Andrew Fisher, of Maiden, Canada, says : — 

"I should say that mulattoes don't have children enough to 
keep up the breed without assistance from emigration, from the 
fact that more of the diseases I have been mentioning, [phthy- 
sis, scrofula and rheumatism,] are developed among mulattoes 
than among pure blacks," 

Snch statistics and sucli opinions confii-m the conclu- 
sion, drawn from other sources, that without the contin- 
uance of mulatto breeding in the South, and fresh 
accessions of population from that quarter, mulattoes 
w^ould soon diminish in Canada ; and, moreover, that 
mulattoism would fade out from the blood of the 
Northern States. 

Upon the whole, then, the colored population of 
Canada, considered solely in a physical light, is a poor 
one. They are of a breed which is neither vigorous nor 
prolific ; and though in its present phase it seems to 
evolve considerable vivacity of temperament and activity 



27 

of intellect, its tendency is rather to deteriorate than 
improve. 

The oiFspring of the cross show less ferocity than their 
progenitors, certainly than their white ones ; but this is 
perhaps from diminished intensity and virility of their 
whole nature. The animal organism is less intense in its - 
action. The mulatto, considered in his animal nature. 
lacks the innervation and spring of the pure blacks and 
whites ; or, is less " high strung." The organic infe- 
riority is shown in less power of resisting destructive 
agencies ; in less fecundity, and less longevity. 

Now, that this is not solely the result of unfavorable 
climatic influences in Canada and New England, is shown 
by the vital statistics of Liberia. There is the native 
country of the negro. There, if any where, he should 
flourish. That Colony is made up of precisely the same 
class of emigrant-freed negroes, mostly from the border 
States, and mostly mulattoes. The first emigrants were 
sent there forty years ago; and up to January, 1858. 
eleven thousand one hundred and seventy-two had been 
landed. A very few have returned; and yet, with all the 
fostering care of the Societies, and with all the aid and 
appliances that kindness and money could afford, " the 
colonists, with all their natural increase, numbered only 
7,6*21 in 1858!"* A loss by excess of deaths over 
births of 33 per cent ! The Haytian emigration has been 
equally disastrous. 

The unfavorable peculiarities of the cross breed are 

* " Liberia As I Saw It," by Rev. A. M. Cowan, Agent Kentucky Colo- 
nization Society, p. 166. 



28 

perhaps increased in the Canadian emigrants by inter- 
marriage within too small a circle. 

If slavery is utterly abolished in the United States, no 
more colored people will emigrate to Canada ; and most 
of those now there will soon leave it. There can be no 
doubt about this. Among hundreds who spoke about 
it, only one dissented from the strong expression of desire 
to " go home." In their belief, too, they agreed with 
Rev. ]Mr. Kinnard, one of then- clergy, who said to us, 
" if freedom is established in the United States, there 
will be one great black streak, reaching from here to 
the uttermost parts of the South." 

Or, if slavery is only so maimed and crippled that it 
can no longer affect the freedom of the dwellers in the 
Northern States, there will be no further emigration to 
Canada. Refugees from slavery will not cross the lakes, 
but remain in the Free States. Those now in Canada will 
disappear by a slower process ; for, as was just said, 
when the fecundity of mulattoes is not increased by 
occasional return to one of the original types, it rapidly 
lessens, at least on this continent above the thirty-fifth 
parallel of north latitude. 

But, if slavery is neither abolished in the South, nor 
prevented from encroaching upon personal freedom and 
security in the North, then the colored population of 
Canada, like that of the Northern and Western States, 
will go on increasing, as it has done, not by its own inhe- 
rent fertility, but by immigration from the border and 
Southern States, where intercourse between the purer 
types of each race is frequent, and where increase is 
encouraged by the marketahle value of the of spring. 



29 

In connection with the physical condition of the exiles, 
it may be as well to consider here the subject of 

Amalgamation of Races. 

It is feared by some that emancipation, by breaking 
down certain barriers between the white and black races, 
may greatly increase their amalgamation. The Canadian 
experiment may throw some light upon this matter. 

During many years, the refugees were mostly men ; 
and to this day, the males are most numerous, because 
women cannot so easily escape. Now, the consequence 
of any departure from the natural numerical proportion 
between the sexes must of course be bad ; and the 
wider the departure, the greater the evil becomes, until 
it culminates in the morbid tastes and monstrous abomi- 
nations engendered in communities^ made up of one sex 
only. Natural tastes and dispositions, unduly thwarted, 
are perverted into morbid and monstrous passions. If 
uncultured black men cannot find black mates, they will 
find white ones, and the contrary. 

It appears that formerly, that is, in the early period 
of the emigration, marriages, or open cohabitation, be- 
tween black men and white women, were not uncommon. 
The marriages were mostly with Irish, or other foreign 
women The instances of white men openly cohabiting 
with black women were very rare ; and marriages of 
this kind were too uncommon to need notice. 

Dr. Litchfield, medical superintendent of criminal 
lunatics, says : — 

" It is not uncommon here for a colored tradesman to marry 
a white woman. The stipendiary magistrate of Kingston 



30 



enumerated some ten or twelve colored men in this locality who 
had married white women. These women were generally Irish 
women, from the class of domestics." 

It is to be remarked that Kingston is far removed from 
the region most populated by colored people ; and that 
probably the first colored emigrants were (ihiefly me?i. 

Withm twenty or thirty years, many men have con- 
trived to redeem by money, or by pluck and enterprise, 
their former wives or sweethearts. Slave women, too, 
heard about Canada, and learned the way. Other colored 
women came in from the Northern and Western States, 
so that the numerical disparity between the sexes soon 
began to lessen, and continues -to do so. This of course 
tended to check amalgamation with whites. 

Meanwhile, another corrective, and that the most im- 
portant of all, began to be felt. As soon as the dis- 
turbing forces of slavery and social oppression ceased 
to act, the negroes, true to human instincts, began to 
be drawn together by more natural affinities than existed 
between them and another race. They grouped them- 
selves into families, and sanctified them by marriage. 

Bishop Green, a colored man of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, says : — 

" There is not much intermarriage between the colors. Bu-t 
our people have too much good sense to think a white woman is 
degraded because she marries a black man. A respectable col- 
ored man and a respectable white woman are looked upon as a 
respectable family. The people don't say any thing against 
such marriages. If the man is an upright man, and the woman 
an upright woman, they treat them as if they wer^ both colored ; 

they have sociability among them. Here is Mrs. , the 

wife of a colored grocery-keeper, who is held in as much 



! 



31 



respect among the first colored women as any black woman in 

town. Here is Mrs. . Her husband is a house-plasterer, 

and she is as much respected as any white woman. I don't 
know that there are more such cases now than formerly. Tlie 
most of them marry in the States, and move here. The 
immediate community here have their associations with their 
own people, and you do not see any of our respectable people 
here marrying any persons but their own associates. The 
young men' of our community are of opinion that they can find 
as good wives among their own class as can be found any where, 
and 3'ou can't find any of them offering to marry a white 
woman. They have their own associates, I assure you, and 
tliey cannot be influenced to do otherwise. These intermar- 
riages are exceptional cases. Most all of them are from the 
States." 

Other colored men take a less liberal view of the 
matter than docs the kind-hearted Bishop. Says John 
Kinney, a very intelligent man, — 

" The majority of tlie colored people don't like the intermar- 
riage of colored and white people, I want to have a woman I 
am not ashamed to go into the street or into company with, and 
that people won't make remarks about. It don't amount to 
any thing, I know, but it hurts a man's feelings." 

Col. Stephenson, who has had much acquaintance with 
colored people, and who employs many of them, says : — 

" They do n't marry much with whites ; it is looked upon 
■vYith such dreadful contempt by all classes — even by the negroes 
themselves. The respectable colored people do n't like to 
have one of their color marry a white woman." 

Mayor Cross, of Chatham, says : — 

" They do not intermarry much with the whites, and it is 
only the most abandoned whites who marry them. It is a 
very good trait in the character of the people, that they do not 



32 

regard it as any honor to marry a white person. A very laugh- 
able incident occurred here the other day. A colored man ran 
away with a white girl, and another colored man, speaking of 
the affair, said : ' I always looked upon hira as a respectable 
man. I did n't think he would fall so low as to marry a white 
girl.' " 

Dr. Fisher, in whose neighborhood is a very hxrge 
colored population, says : — 

" Those who are here generally marry among themselves, 
and keep aloof. I have been here four years, and I have never 
heard of a white person getting married to a colored one." 

Mr. Sinclair, teacher of the public school of Chatham, 

says : — 

" So it is with a white woman who marries a negro. The 
whites will have nothing to say to her, and her society is entirely 
with the blacks. Such marriages occur once in a while, but 
not so frequently as they did a number of years ago. There 
was considerable stir and fuss made about it, and the greater 
part of the colored people, and their leading men, are opposed 
to it themselves." 

Thus the desire to imitate the higher civilization 
around theln, seconded by the influence of the church, 
has brought the colored people rapidly up, and out of 
their loose and incontinent habits. The refugees, when 
living among those of their own color, and able to earn 
a livelihood, follow the attraction of natural affinities, 
eschew marriage with whites, and build up families 
among themselves. White men will not marry black 
women ; and notwithstanding the fearful social pressure 
which often forces white women to venture upon any 
forlorn hope in marriage, few venture upon the most 



33 

forlorn hope of all, in the present state of society — union 
with a black man. 

Upon the whole, then, the experience of the Canadian 
refugees goes to show that there need be no anxiety 
upon the score of amalgamation of races in the United 
States. With freedom, and protection of thek legal 
rights ; with an open field for industry, and opportuni- 
ties for mental and moral culture, colored people will 
not seek relationship with whites, but will follow 
their natural affinities, and marry among themselves. 
With the additional advantage which they will, or surely 
ought to have, of choosing the soil and climate most 
congenial to then nature, they will give no trouble upon 
this score, at least in the Northern, Western or Middle 
States. Drawn by natural attractions to warmer regions, 
they wdl co-operate powerfully with the whites from the 
North in re-organizing the industry of the South ; but 
they will dwindle and gradually disappear from the 
peoples of this continent, outstripped by more vigorous 
competitors in the struggle for life. But, surely, history 
will record their blameless life as a people ; their patient 
endurance of suffering and of wrong ; and their sublime 
return of good for evil to the race of their oppressors. 

Section 3. — Material Condition — Property/, Taxes, Si'c. 

Has the negro the ability and the will, to work and 
support himself, in a state of freedom 1 

Many anxious souls are now pondering this questioD, 
just as if it had not been solved, over and over again. 

In the South, especially in the Border States, thousands 
of slaveholders shoAv their faith by their actions ; for 



34 

they leave the negro to lead and direct the field hands, to 
manage their small farms, and to run their mills ; they 
send him to neighboring markets to sell garden stuff, and 
to more distant markets with droves of hogs and cattle ; 
and they even confide to him small craft, with their 
cargoes, on rivers and lakes. But especially does that 
large class believe, who hire him out to himself, by the 
month or year, and ask not and care not what he does, 
so that he pays them punctually for the use of his own 
brain and muscles. 

Again, there are about a half million* free colored 
peojjle in the United States, who not only support them- 
selves, with less aid from public charity than our foreign 
population receive, but contribute to the material pros- 
perity of the country. Of these, there are 225,955 in the 
Slave States, and 262,015 in the Free States. The former, 
notwithstanding they are unenfranchised, and labor under 
various political and legal disabilities, support themselves 
and contribute to the general weal. 

In Maryland, for instance, according to the Preliminary 
Eeport of the U. S. Census, 1860, "This class, constitut- 
ing as it does, 12 1-4 per cent, of the whole population, 
forms an important element in the free labor of the State."t 

In Kentucky, they support themselves, build churches, 
live in neat and comfortable houses, pay taxes, and are 
respectable and useful inhabitants. 

In Louisiana, and in other States, many of them are 
wealthy. Those in the Free States, in spite of blind and 

* 487,970— Abstract U. S. Census, 1860, p. 3. 
t Abstract U. S. Census, 1860, p. 6. 



35 

bitter prejudice, are thriving; as the abundant testimony 
gathered by your Commission, will prove. 

Still, many people are made to believe that the negro 
is too lazy to work, except under compulsion. To such, 
the Canadian experiment may furnish another line and 
precept. 

Let it be borne in mind, however, that the refugees 
find no other advantage in Canada except freedom and 
protection by the laws. In all other respects, they labor 
under very great disadvantages. Chiefest is that of 

Climate. 
This is even a greater obstacle than appears at first, for 
it is a feeble breed, and not a vigorous race, which has to 
resist its rigors. Forced to flee their own country, they 
were thwarted at the very outset, in a very important mat- 
ter ; because considerations about warmth are always lead- 
ing ones in the choice of new dwelling-places. Men in- 
stinctively seek the temperature best suited to their organi- 
zation. Long residence even, in a country the tempera- 
ture of which is not congenial to a race, does not change 
. their disposition ; and if they make a voluntary emigra- 
tion, its track will be along the isothermal line native to 
their fathers. As a geologist who finds a fragment of 
an early stratum above a later one, infers that it must 
have been rent from its connection by some convulsion, 
so the sociologist who finds people of African descent, 
living in an arctic region, infers that it must have been 
driven, not drawn, thither. If free to choose their own 
dwelling-places, the negroes would be surely drawn by 
thermal laws, from the Northern and Western States, and 



36 

towards the tropics. But slavery reverses even physical 
laws, and drives men who would fain live where the 
lizard can bask all the year round, to a region in which 
the fox and deer can hardly resist the bitter cold. 

It is true that the refugees are not generally conscious 
of the great disadvantage of the climate. Indeed, to hear 
them talk, one would suppose they were " to the arctic 
born." They have a bravado way about it, and say, " We 
can stand the climate just as well as white men," — 
unconscious of the import of the words " stand a climate ! " 
that is, contend with it as with an enemy ; fight against 
it; keep up a life-long struggle with it, and expend 
their energy in retaining the warmth of which it is con- 
tinually robbing them. 

Now and then one, of happy organization, like the 
jovial watchmaker, Sparks, at Chatham, seems to thrive 
on cold. " I like it, first rate," said he ; " I weighed only 
179 pounds when I came here, and now I weigh 24:1.'" 
And his shadow is not becoming less. 

All the facts, however, are against the theory of their 
becoming acclimated ; and some of the most thoughtful 
ones among them are aware of it. The following are 
selected from the testimony ; and they are the words of 
men whose natural ability and acquired knowledge would 
make them remarkable in the industrial ranks of any 
community. 

Alfred Butler, of Toronto, says : — 

" Our people find the climate here pretty tough for the first 
winters, but we get used to it after a while. Of course, it does 
not agree with us so well as a warmer climate would. I don't 
think it quite so easy to raise children here as down South. I 



37, 

think the climate preys more upon the constitution than the 
Southern climate does. I have become pretty well acclimated 
here, and I can endure as much cold as most people raised 
liere ; and yet I think the weather preys upon a person's 
constitution more, and a man gives way." 

F. G. Simpson, of the same place, says: — 

" I think, as a whole, the climate is rather too hard for the 
generality of the colored people — more especially those from 
the far South — though they stand it pretty well. But I notice 
that many of them die of decline or consumption here." * * 
" This climate is very changeable. I have seen it change 
twenty degrees in a few hours. Those not prepared with 
clothing suffer from these sudden changes. I doubt if our 
people are so fertile here as at the South. I think a warm 
country, for any race of people, tends to make them more 
prolific than a cold climate. I may be mistaken, but I don't 
think the colored people are so prolific here as they are in the 
States. Judging from appearances, there are not so many 
children here." 

Says Dr. A. T. Jones, of London : — 

" I do not believe the climate is altogether congenial with 
the health of the colored people. I do not think the colored 
community would flourish as much here as down in Kentucky 
or Maryland." 

But a still greater disadvantage is that of 

The Prejudice of the Whites against Negroes. 
Peoples have their way of gossiping, just; as indi- 
viduals have; and a favorite one is that of criticising 
their neighbors, and talking national scandal. The 
American people are charged with prejudice against the 
negroes ; and our English cousins especially denounce it 
as a proof of our innate depravity ; while the more 
philosophic French smile at it as merely a proof of our 
being " behinded ; " that is, less liberal than the " grand 
nation." 



•38 

The affinity between all members of the human 
family which fits them for sympathy and affection is of 
course greater between proximate races than between 
remote ones. If a lone Caucasian in a desert should 
meet a Carib, (who did not happen to be hungry or 
angry,) they would probably be drawn together as brother 
men. If an African should come along, the Caucasian 
would prefer him by reason of closer affinity of race, 
and the Carib might complain of this as prejudice. 
A Mongol might wean the Caucasian from the African ; 
but one of his own race would have still better chance for 
his sympathy. Even among the varieties of race, there 
are different degrees of natural affinity ; and an Anglo- 
Saxon is drawn to a Teuton more readily than to a Celt. 
Now, this law of affinity is strong enough in a state of 
freedom to preserve the harmony of nature, and keep all 
men in their places ; and if we add culture, all women 
too. The essentials, however, are freedom and culture ; 
for without these the natural affinities will not prevent 
men warring upon each other, at small provocations ; 
though never as they war upon wolves and other brutes. 
But because a man's sympathies with those of his own 
race are so strong that he cannot think of marrying into 
another race, and cannot think Avith pleasure of his 
child doing so, must this be charged as guilty preju- 
diced Does preference imply prejudice, any more than 
love implies hate? However, let the rationale of preju- 
dice against the negroes be what it may, it surely does 
not become the English to reproach the Americans, as a 
people, with the sin of it ; for they themselves have quite 
as much of it ; and their people show it whenever the 



39 

negroes come among them in sufficient numbers to 
compete for the means of living, and for civil rights. 
Whenever circumstances call it forth among the coarse 
and brutal, they manifest it just as brutally as Ameri- 
cans do. They have done so in Canada; and would 
doubtless do so in England. 

If the French people are, as they boast to be, above this 
prejudice, (which is improbable,) it must be because they 
have greater moral culture, (which is more improbable;) 
or else that the Celtic element in their blood has closer 
affinity with the African than ours has. 

The English Canadians try to persuade themselves 
that when this malady of prejudice does occasionally 
appear among them, they do not have it in the natural 
way, but catch it from the Americans; and that it breaks 
out in its worst form in towns where Americans most 
abound. 

The Rev. Mr. Proudfoot, of London, is a friend of the 
colored people, and has shown his friendship by manly 
opposition to the popular cry for expelling their children 
from the public schools and putting them in separate 
schools. He said to us : — 

" The prejudice against colored people is growinj:^ here. 
But it is not a British feeling ; it does not spring from our peo- 
ple, but from, your people coming- over here. There are many 
Americans here, and great deference is paid to their feelings. 
* * * We have a great deal of Northern feeling here. The 
sympathy for the North is much greater than you would 
imagine. In fact, I have been very much vexed at it." 

This opinion is hugged by very intelligent English 
people ; and even suclif an enlightened man as Dr. Ryer- 
son, Superintendent of Public Instruction, holds on to it. 
Said he to us : — 



40 

" The American feeling still exists in this country in regard 
to people of color, especially among the country people. I do 
not consider it a natural feeling, because it is not an English 
feeling." 

The colored people, however, say, that this theory of 
contagion is not sustained by facts ; and the bulk of the 
evidence shows that they are right. 

The truth of the matter seems to be that, as long as 
the colored people form a very small proportion of the 
population, and are dependent, they receive protection 
and favors ; but when they increase, and compete with 
the laboring class for a living, and especially when they 
begin to aspire to social equality, they cease to be " in- 
teresting negroes," and become " niggers." 

The words of Mr. Meigs, of Maiden, expressed the 
truth ; but the contemptuous tone in which he uttered 
the last sentence, gave it additional force. Said he : — 

" I have been here for twenty-three years. The feeling 
against the colored people has been growing ever since I came 
here, and more particularly since your President's Proclama- 
tion. They are becoming now so very haughty that they are 
looking upon themselves as the equals of the whites ! " 

This prejudice exists so generally in Canada, that trav- 
ellers usually form an unpleasant and unjust opinion of 
the colored refugees, because it is usually strong and 
bitter in that class of persons with whom travellers come 
most in contact. For instance, the head-clerk in the 

hotel at , in answer to our inquiries 

about the condition of the colored people, broke out as 
follows : — 

" Niggers are a damned nuisance. They keep men of means 
away from the place. This town has got the name of ' Nigger 



41 

Town,' and men of wealth won't come here. I never knew one 
of them that would not steal, thongh they never steal any 
thing of any great amount. Chickens have to roost higli about 
here, I tell you. The Grand Jury of this county has just in- 
dicted seven persons, and every one of them was black. They 
will steal a little sugar, or a pound of butter, and put it in their 
pockets. But perhaps they are not to blame for it, for they have 
been trained to steal in slavery." 

This sort of evidence forms the staple out of which 
newspaper reporters manufacture articles, and form the 
public opinion about the Canadian refugees. Xow, in 
this very hotel, the head waiter, an intelligent man, who 
enjoyed the respect and confidence of the household, 
clerks included, Avas a colored man — one who Ijought 
himself for f 1,000, saving, with singular persistency and 
resolution, $50 a year for twenty years, for that purpose. 
His place was one of considerable consequence, requiring 
capacity and integrity ; and he seemed to fill it to general 
satisfaction. 

It is not, however, hotel clerks alone, but grave officials. 
Mayors and others, who, when first addressed, are apt to 
speak contemptuously of the colored ]3eople ; though 
they usually do them more justice upon reflection ; espe- 
cially in those cities where the negro vote is large enough 
to turn an election. 

The following is a fair sample of the matter of several 
of these conversations. After explaining our mission, 

and telling Mr. , head magistrate of , that the 

object of the interview was to ask his opinion of the 
colored people of his city, he said sharply : — 

" Then my opinion is that niggers are a low, miserable set of 
people, and I wish they were not liere." 

6 



42 

" Well, let us see ; are they intemperate ? " " Oh, no ; I 
must say they are not. Indeed, you never see any drunken 
negroes about." 

" Are they riotous and ungovernable ? " 

" Oh, no, quite the contrary ; none of our people are more 
easily governed, or give less trouble to the police." 

" Are they much given to crime ? " 

" Yes, I think they are." 

" More so than any other immigrants of the laboring class ? " 

" As to that, if you compare them with foreigners, they are 
not worse. They do steal chickens, and commit such petty 
offences, but then a great many white people do that, you 
know." 

" Do they work and get their own living, or do they beg and 
depend upon public charity ? " 

" Negroes are too lazy to work hard ; but I must admit that 
they are industrious. They keep pottering about, and pick up 
a good living, somehow. At any rate, they do not beg, and 
they have very few paupers." 

" Well, if they don't get drunk, and don't steal over much, 
and don't beg, and don't become a public charge, and if they 
work and support themselves, why are they not good citizens ? " 

" I can't deny there's something in that. But still, I think 
they are a nuisance ; I wish they were out of the place. 1 
don't wish, however, to be quoted publicly as saying this, be- 
cause, you know, it might make trouble."* 

The Hon. Isaac Buchanan, M. P., of Hamilton, said 

to us :-— 

" I think we see the effects of slavery here very plainly. 
The children of the colored people go to the public schools, but 
a great many of the white parents object to it, though their 
children do not, that I know of. I suppose, if the question was 
put "to vote, the people would vote against having the negroes 
remain here." 

* Coarse people in Canada say " nigger" habitually ; highly cultivated 
people, never. Others say " colored people," " negroes," or " niggers,'' 
according to their mood of mind. 



43 

Hon. George Brown, M. P., of Toronto, said : — 

" I think the prejudice against the colored people is stronger 
here than in the States. To show you the prejudice that exists 
against them, I will mention one fact. When I was a candi- 
date for Parliament in Upper Canada, 150 people signed a 
paper, saying that if I would agree to urge the passage of a 
law that the negro should be excluded from the common 
schools, and putting a head-tax upon those coming into the 
country, they would all vote for me ; otherwise they would 
vote for my opponent. There were 150 men degraded enough 
to sign such a paper and send it to me." 

Mr. McCnllum, principal teacher of the Hamilton 
High School, says: — 

" Up at the oil spriiigs, the colored people have quite a little 
town. The white people were there, and they had all the work. 
They charged six shillings for sawing a cord of wood. The 
colored people went up there from Chatham, and, in order to 
get constant employment, they charged only fifty cents a cord. 
What did the white people do ? They raised a mob, went one 
night and burned every shanty that belonged to a colored 
person, and drove them off entirely. Well, it was a mob ; it 
was not society at all ; it was but the dregs of society who did 
this. They took a quantity of the oil, and while some of their 
number were parleying with the colored people in front of their 
doors, they went behind, threw the oil over their shanties, set it 
on fire, and the buildings were in flames in a moment.. The 
parties were arrested, and two of them sent to the penitentiary 
for seven years." 

Eev. James Proudfoot, of London, says: — 

" You will find a great many colored people about Chatham — 
too many. It has produced a certain reaction among the -white 
people there. The white people do not associate much with 
them ; and even in the courts of justice, a place is allotted to 
the colored people — they are not allowed to mix with the 
whites. A number of gentlemen have told me that." 



44 

Mayor Cross, of Chatham, says: — 

" The colored people generally live apart. There has been, 
hitherto, a very strong prejudice against them, and the result is 
that they are, generally speaking, confined to a particular 
locality of the town." 

, Kev. Mr. Geddes, of Toronto, says : — 

" The great mass of the colored population will be found in 
the West ; and where they go in any great numbers, the people 
acquire a strong prejudice against them." 

Mr. Sinclair, of Chatham, says: — 

" Our laws know nothing about creed, color, or nationality. 
If foreign-born, when they take the oath of allegiance, they are 
the same as natives. But in regard to social prejudice, that is 
something we cannot help. The colored people are considered 
inferior, and must remain so for many years, perhaps forever, 
because their color distinguishes them. One or two colored 
men are constables here, but that is all." * * * * 

" Many of the colored people, even in this town, say that if 
they could have the same privileges in the States that they have 
here, they would not remain a moment. The prejudice is not 
so strong in this town, where they have been so long known, 
and where the people see they can be improved and elevated ; 
but even in this county, there is one township where no colored 
man is allowed to settle. One man has tried to build a house 
there, but as fast as he built it in the day time, the white people 
would pull it down at night. No personal violence was done to 
him. That was in the township of Orford. In the township of 
Howard, I think there are only four colored families, and they 
are a very respectable class of people. In that township, there 
was as much prejudice as anywhere, fourteen years ago ; but 
two colored families, very respectable and intelligent people, 
settled there — tliey were rather superior in those respects to 
the neighborhood generally — and they did a vast amount 
towards doing away with the prejudice. They were intelligent, 
cleanly, moral, and even religious ; so that ministers of the 
gospel would actually call and take dinner with these people, 



45 

as they found every thing so nice, tidy and comfortable, and the 
poor colored people so kind, and so ready to welcome any 
decent person who came. So that a good deal depends npon 
the first samples that go into a town." 

The testimony of the colored people is still more strik- 
ing. Mrs. Brown, (colored,) of St. Catherines, 

says : — 

" I find more pi-ejudice here than I did in York State. When 
I was at home, I could go anywhere ; but here, my goodness ! 
you get an insult on every side. But the colored people have 
their rights before the law ; that is the only thing that has kept 
me here." 

Dr. A. T. Jones, (colored,) of London, says: — 

" There is a mean prejudice here that is not to be found in 
the States, though the Northern States are pretty bad." 

Eev. L. C. Chambers, (colored,) of St. Catherines, says : 

" The prejudice here against the colored people is stronger, a 
great deal, than it is in Massachusetts. Since I have been in 
the country, I went to a church one Sabbath, and the sexton 
asked me, 'What do you want here to-day?' I said, 'Is 
there not to be service here to-day ? ' He said, ' Yes, but we 
do n't want any niggers here.' I said, 'You are mistaken in 
the man. I am not a " nigger," but a negro.' " 



*C3!=)^ 



Mrs. Susan Boggs, (colored,) of St. Catherines, says : — 

"If it was not for the Queen's law, we would be mobbed 
here, and we could not stay in this house. The prejudice is a 
great deal worse here than it is in the States." 

G. F. Simpson, (colored,) of Toronto, says : — 

" I must say that, leaving the law out of the question, I find 
that prejudice here is equally strong as on the other side. The 
law is the only thing that sustains us in this country." 



46 

John Shipton, (colored,) of London, says: — 

" I never experienced near the prejudice down there, (in the 
States,) that I have here. -Tiie prejudice here woukl be a heap 
worse than in the States, if it was not that the law keeps it 
down." 

It would be easy to show how the natural sympathy 
and compassion which is felt for the exiles on their first 
arrival by all, and which continues to be felt by people of 
Christian culture, is converted into antipathy and ani- 
mosity among the vulgar. The teachers in the pulpit, 
and the teachers of public schools, have much to answer 
for in this matter. The clergy of the Church of England 
are generally staunch friends of the negro. Eev. Mr. 
Geddes, of Hamilton, said : — 

" There are several colored people belonging to my church. 
I have them also in the Sunday school, and have always taken 
an interest in tlie improvement of their condition, socially and 
religiously. There are two young colored women also in the 
Sunday school, who teach white children of respectable 
parents." 

He related to us a case of two young ladies who were 
sent to Hamilton for education, and who joined his Sunday 
school. Their parents, on learning that colored children 
attended the school, sent a remonstrance, saying that 
their children must not be associated with negroes. His 
answer was : — 

" I am sorry that any persons belonging to the Church of 
England are so narrow-minded as to suppose their children 
will be injured because there are a few colored persons in the 
same school ; but of course we cannot change our principle, 
and the young ladies must leave." 

Many Presbyterian clergymen are equally humane 



47 

and just ; but there are those of all denominations who 
refrain from rebuking by their example the intolerant 
and unchristian spirit which prevails among their people. 

So some of the teachers in public schools, rising to 
the dignity of their high calling, see in their colored 
pupils poor and friendless children, who have most need 
of sympathy and encouragement, and therefore they be- 
stow them freely, careless whether committee-men and the 
public approve or not. 

Mr. McCullum, principal of the well-a]3pointed High 
School in Hamilton, says : — 

" I had charge of the Provincial Model School at Toronto for 
over ten years, and I have had charge of this school over four 
years, and have had colored children under ray charge all that 
time. They conduct themselves with the strictest propriety, 
and I have never known an occasion where the white children 
have had any difficulty with them on account of color. At first, 
when any new ones came, I used to go out vjith them in the 
playground myself^ and play with them specially, just to show 
that I made no distinction wliatever ; and then the children 
made none. I found this plan most healthy in its operation. 

" Little white children do not show the slightest repugnance 
to playing with the colored children, or coming in contact with 
them. I never knew of a case. But sometimes parents will 
not let their children sit at the same desk with a colored child. 
The origin of the difficulty is not being treated like other 
children. We have no difficulty here. We give the children 
their seats according to their credit-marks in the preceding 
month, and I never have had the slightest difficulty. The 
moral conduct of the colored children is just as good as that 
of the others." 

In London, the head-master of the High School 
manifested a different spirit : he said, — 

" It does not work well with us to have colored children in 
school with the whites. In our community, there is more 



48 

prejudice against the colored people, and tlie children receive 
it from tlieir parents. The colored children must feel it, 
for the white children refuse to play with them in the play- 
ground. Whether it is a natural feeling or not I cannot tell, 
but it shows itself in the playground and in the class-room." 

One of the teachers said : — 

"I think that the colored children would be better educated, 
and that it would be more conducive to tlie happiness both of 
colored and white children if they were in separate schools. 
Tlie colored children would not be subjected to so much 
annoyance. Some white children of the lower orders don't 
mind sitting by them in school ; but there are others who are 
very particular, and don't like it at all." 

Now, this head-master is a man of vigorous nature, 
who makes his influence felt widely ; and should he 
exert that influence as Mr. McCullum does, then perhaps 
" it would iDork well to have colored children in school 
with the whites ;" then perhaps his sub-teachers would 
not show such lack of sympathy with the little colored 
children committed, in the providence of God, to their 
charge ; then perhaps there would be no such sad sight 
as we saw in the playground, where colored children stood 
aside, and looked wishfully at groups of whites playing 
games from which they were excluded. Such scenes do 
not occur in the playground at Hamilton, because the 
teacher takes care, by showing personal interest in the 
colored children, to elevate them in the eyes of their 
comrades. Moreover, it is not likely that the school com- 
mittee of London would persist in efforts to expel colored 
children from the public schools, and so degrade them 
in the public eye, if one humane master should publicly 
protest against it, as any citizen has a right to do. 



49 

Toronto and Hamilton are distinguished among the 
populous places of Canada West for the comparative 
liberality and kindness towards colored people. London 
is not ; and the difference arises in some degree, doubt- 
less, from the different spirit which children imbibe in 
the public schools under different head masters. At 
any rate, this accounts for the difference better than 
the theory of " contagion " from Americans does. 

The Canadians constantly boast that their laws know 
no difference of color ; that they make blacks eligible to 
offices, and protect all their rights; and the refugees 
constantly admit that it is so. The very frequency of 
the assertion and of the admission, proves that it is not 
considered a matter of course that simple justice should 
be done. People do not boast that the law protects 
white men. 

After making all due allowance for the fact that the 
lack of culture disqualifies most of the refugees for many 
offices to which they are legally eligible, and also for re- 
fined society, there is manifest injustice done to them in 
various ways by reason of a vulgar and bitter prejudice, 
which defeats the benevolent purposes of the law. For 
instance, they are practically kept off the juries. The 
testimony of Mr. A. Bartlett, town clerk of Windsor, 
shows one way in which it is done. He says : — 

" The selection of the jury is a simple thing. We begin 
with the man who is assessed the higliest on the roll, and we 
go down to half the names on the roll ; then the amount paid 
by that person who is lowest on the first half forms the amount 
of property qualification for that jury. Then we take two- 
thirds of that number, and of course the selectors have it in 
their power to say what two-thirds shall be taken ; and of 
7 



50 

course the colored man is cut off, because they don't want 
him on." 

It happens sometimes that a sturdy Englishman, seeing 
only his duty, insists upon its being done legally and 
impartially, and then colored men are drawn. 

Such a case happened recently. A black man was 
drawn and duly summoned. He appeared in court, and 
was placed upon the jury, to the consternation of some 
snobs, who refused to sit in the box with him. The 
Judge had the manliness to reprimand them, then to fine 
them, and finally to imprison them ; which at last 
brought them to what senses they had. 

There is the same practical difficulty with regard to 

Public Schools. 

The Canadian law makes no distinction of color. It 
proposes that common schools shall be beneficial to all 
classes alike. Practically, however, there is a distinction 
of color, and negroes do not have equal advantage from 
public instruction with whites. The law allows colored 
people to send their children to the common schools, or 
to have separate schools of their own. They have asked 
for and obtained such separate schools in Chatham, Mai- 
den, and Windsor. Now, there is a growing feeling 
among the whites that they made a mistake in giving the 
blacks their choice; and a strong disposition is mani- 
fested in many places to retract it, and to confine colored 
children to separate or caste schools. 

On the other hand, there is a growing feeling on the 
part of the colored people that they made a mistake in 
asking for separate schools ; and a strong disposition is 



51 

manifested to give them up; but the whites will not 
allow them to do so. 

This again shows how surely the natural sympathy 
for the refugee is converted into antipathy or prejudice 
whenever, by increase in number, they come into .antag- 
onism with the dominant class. By such antagonism, 
the natural affinities between ■ the whites become intensi- 
fied, and they desire to keep the blacks in a separate 
caste, because they feel that it must be a lower one. 
Many colored people see this also, and they desire to 
prevent the establishment of such caste. Each party 
begins to see that the democratic tendency of the com- 
mon school is to prevent or weaken castes, while the 
inevitable tendency of the separate schools is to create 
and to strengthen them. 

The struggle has already commenced in several places. 
The school committee of London has shown its purpose 
of removing the colored children from the common 
school to a separate school * ; and the colored people 
have declared their purpose of resisting it. Most active 
among them is Dr. A. T. Jones, a very black man, and a 
very intelligent one also ; although he was a slave during 
the first twenty years of his life. He testified as follows : — 

" The people here won't make the separate schools go. 
When they try it, they will have trouble. I will tell yovi pre- 
cisely what I tell them. I tell them — ' I have eight children, who 
were all born in this town, — British subjects, as much as the 
whitest among you ; and they don't believe in any thing else 
l)ut the Queen. Now, instead of leaving these children to 

* See Report of a Sub-Committee of the School Trustees of the City of 
London ; in appendix No. 2. It is vahiable, inasmuch as it shows how illib- 
eral and unjust well-meaning men may become when governed by the spirit 
of caste. 



52 

grow up with tliat love for the country and the Queen, you 
are trying to plant within them a hatred for the country ; and 
the day may come when you will hear them saying, " This is 
the country that disfranchises us, and deprives us of our rights ;" 
and you may see them coming back here from the United 
States with muskets in their hands.' I don't believe that in 
ten years from this time you will see a colored man in this 
country. We won't stay here after this war is decided ; for I 
have my opinion in which way it is to be decided. I have told 
my children to stay in school until they are put out. ' If they 
tell you to go,' I have said to them, ' don't go, but wait until 
they lay hands on you to put you out ; and then you come 
quietly home, and I will attend to it.' I have four children in 
the school, who go regularly, and are getting on very well ; 
there is no complaint of them. I told the trustees if there 
was any complaint of their not behaving well, or any thing of 
the kind, to expel them from the school, or let me know." 

This struggle between a fugitive slave and the school 
trustees of the city of London involves a great principle, 
and the decision of the Court Avill be looked for with 
interest, not only by the parties immediately concerned, 
but by multitudes in Canada. Nor should the interest 
be confined to that country ; for the same question and 
the same struggle will arise in this. 

Meantime, the question has been decided in favor of 
the right of the school trustees of London to establish 
a separate school for colored children by the highest 
authority short of the Court, — Dr. Kyerson, the Chief 
Superintendent of Public Instruction in Canada West. 
He said to us : — 

''It is within the power of the school trustees in* cities and 
towns to make a distinction between colors, for there they have 
the direction of all the schools ; but in country places, where 
there are distinct school municipalities, it is at the option of the 



53 

colored people to have separate schools or not. In some country 
places, the trustees have refused to admit colored children to 
the schools ; the parents have appealed to me ; I have referred 
them to the courts ; and the courts have always given decisions 
in their favor." 

It is conceded that the law authorizes the school trustees 
to establish separate schools for colored people upon their 
asking for them ; it also authorizes school trustees in 
cities and towns to establish separate schools without 
such restriction. The obvious intent of giving this latter 
power was to meet the wants of Roman Catholics, who 
congregate in towns and cities. But notwithstanding this 
intent, the Chief Superintendent decides that, under the 
law, the trustees may establish separate schools for colored 
children, and exclude them from the schools for whites. 
This seems, to a layman, an extraordinary decision, how- 
ever it may strike lawyers. It seems extraordinary, be- 
cause the whole people, speaking through the laws, not 
only declared against distinctions which lead to the 
establishment of castes, but purposely ignored distinction 
of color among citizens. They established a government 
to carry out their will ; and yet a subordinate branch 
of this government may use power derived from it to 
defeat that will, and to degrade part of the citizens on 
account* of their color! 

Moreover, it would seem that by permitting the School 
Trustees to establish separate schools upon the petition of 
colored people, the legislature did not contemplate the 
establishment of such schools against their will. 

The spirit of the law clearly contemplated common 
schools, not compulsory caste schools ; and if these can 



54 

be established in virtue of any &3/-law, then verily, the 
letter killeth the spirit. 

Underlying the great institution of the common 
school are two primal ideas, one of individual culture, 
the other of human brotherhood. In the common school 
house is held the first gathering of the Demos, in primary 
assemblage, never to be dissolved, only adjourned from 
day to day, through all time. The little people trained 
in the exercise of family love at home, come together in 
the school-house to enlarge the circle of their affec- 
tions by loving other children of the greater human 
family, in its wider home — the world. Strange perver- 
sion, if the first moral lesson should be that of exclusion 
and caste ! 

It would be easy and agreeable to cite cases in which 
not only justice but good will is manifested towards the 
refugees. It is usually done in the towns where they 
make a ^ery small proportion of the population. It is 
done in the University of Toronto, and in some other 
literary educational institutions. But upon the whole, 
there is a strong popular prejudice against the colored 
people, which operates greatly to the disadvantage of the 
refugees. 

Then another disadvantage is to be considered. Emi- 
grants going to a new country, especially to a cold one, 
need to make some preparation, and to take with them 
a little property. These refugees, however, could do 
neither. Those from the Slave States landed in Canada 
penniless, and without change of raiment, Those from the 
Free States brought small sums which they had earned ; 
but very few had money enough for a month's subsist- 



55 

ence. The Provincial Government did nothing for them ; 
and the local authorities made no provision for employ- 
ing them. Some money, indeed, has been raised by con- 
tribution in England and the United States, but most of 
this has been expended (with questionable wisdom) for 
establishing several communities, or agricultural colo- 
nies ; for building up churches ; and for supporting white 
agents in comfort. Very little of this money has been 
applied directly to the aid of the refugees. 

Notwithstanding all these disadvantages, they have 
shown the will and the ability to M'ork and to support 
themselves. 

Disposition to Work. 

No sensible people in Canada charge the refugees with 
slothfulness. The only charge worth notice is that they 
" shirk hard work." This charge is made thoughtlessly 
by most people ; wrathfully by those who have to do the 
heavy drudgery. The gist of the matter, however, is 
this: In every civilized community there is a certain 
amount of hard work, requiring muscular effort, to be 
done by somebody. In Canada, as elsewhere, this work, 
instead of being made a blessing to all by fair and equal 
distribution, is made a grievous burden to one class, by 
being thrown exclusively on their shoulders, while 
another class suffers from lack of it. 

Each white man tries to spare his own muscles, and to 
make some of his neighbors do his share of manual 
labor. If he must work, he prefers the lightest kind of 
labor. The negro stands by, and imitates the white 



56 



man. Work he must ; but, like his fugieman, he pre- 
fers the light kind ; and he contrives to get it. 

Men want to be shaved, and to have their boots blacked. 
They want also to have heavy hods carried up ladders ; 
and wet mud shovelled out of ditches. There stand 
Irishmen, Germans, and negroes, seeking work. Each 
would prefer the lighter kind, especially as it is best 
paid. Each would prefer to exercise his fingers rather 
than his arms ; and to wait and tend, rather than strain 
his back and weary his muscles. But the employer 
prefers the nimble-fingered negro for his light work, and 
the brawny-armed Irishman for his heavy work. So the 
negro shaves, and brushes, and tends, and frisks about ; 
while his competitor delves, and swears that " a nigger 
is too lazy to work." 

Sometimes the competition and contrast are very 
striking, as in hotels and boarding-houses. Here the 
colored men abound ; but in these very houses, the 
porterage, and all heavy work and dirty work, arc done 
by white men. If you ring your bell, the nimble mulatto 
who skips up to you in his white linen jacket, does not 
soil his dainty fingers by bringing the coal which you 
ask for, bnt sends a stalwart fireman, a traditionary white 
man, but so black and begrimed by coal, that in the 
South he might need free papers to prove his lineage. 

In further proof of the mulatto's disposition to imi- 
tate the white man, and shift the heaviest burden to 
other men's shoulders, it may be stated that the colonists 
in Liberia do exactly as the exiles in Canada do, except 
that they use the native negroes, instead of Celts, to hew 
their wood and draw their water. 



57 



"I was astonished," says the Rev. Mr. Cowan, "to see in 
Harper, native women bringing up cord-wood on their heads 
from the landing on the river-bank to private dwellings, at 
twenty-five cents a day, while the colonist felt above such 
work."* 

Verily, human nature does not change with time, nor 
does color affect it ; for the old maxim may be applied to 
these colonists — " They who cross the sea change their 
sky, but not their spirit." 

But mulattoes dislike hard manual labor, not only 
because it is held less respectable than light work or no 
work, but because by their very organization, — by their 
lymphatic temperament, and lack of animal vigor, they 
are less adapted to prolonged muscular * effort than full 
breeds. That they do not lack industry and thrift, the 
condition of those in Canada proves clearly, for thousands 
and tens of thousands of colored people have there 
worked hard for a living, and have earned it. 

First, there is negative proof of this, in the fact that 
they do not beg, and that they receive no more than their 
share of public support, if even so much. We traversed 
the whole length of Canada West three times, stopping 
at the places where colored people most abounded ; 
going into their quarters in the cities, and visiting 
their farm-houses by the wayside ; yet we met no beg- 
gars ; and although there were evident signs of ex- 
treme poverty among those recently arrived, we did 
not see such marks of utter destitution and want, as 
may be found in the lower walks of life in most coun- 

*" Liberia As I Found It."" By Rev. A. Cowan, Agent of the Kentucky 
Colonization Society, p. 122. 



58 

tries. The following are fair specimens of the testimony 
given by intelligent white persons upon this point. 
Hon. George Brown, M. P., of Toronto, says : — 

" One thing about the colored people here is quite remarkable ; 
they never beg. They only ask for work ; and when they get 
work, if they have borrowed any money, they will come back 
and pay it — a thing I iiever knew white men to do. Their 
ministers are about the only beggars with black faces I have 
over seen." 



Mr. Park, a merchant of Maiden, says : — 

" Part of them (the colored population) are disposed to be 
industrious, and part of them are pretty indolent. They don't 
take care of their* own poor. We have no poor-house. The 
poor are relieved either by the government of the municipality, 
or by the people. The colored people get about the same 
assistance, in proportion to tlieir numbers, that the whites do. 
I think they beg more than the whites do." 

Mr. Brush, Town Clerk of Maiden, says : — 

" A portion of tliem (the colored people) are pretty well — 
behaved, and another portion not. We have a very small Irisli 
laboring population. A great many of these colored people go 
and sail (are sailors) in the summer time, and in the winter, 
lie round, and don't do much. The upper part of this town is 
inhabited by French people, the worst people in the world. 
There is not the toss of a copper between them and the colored 
people. We have to help a great many of them ; more than 
any other class of people we have here. I have been Clerk of 
the Council for three years, and have had the opportunity of 
knowing. I think the Council have given more to the colored 
people than to any others." 

In and about Maiden the colored people congregate 
too numerously, and do not do so well as in other places. 



59 

The V\e\. James Proudfoot, of London, says : — " I don't 
know a beggar among the colored people." 

The great mass of the colored people of Canada have 
been thrown entirely upon their own resources ; and their 
history is genemlly like that of a fugitive whom we met, 
who told us that on arrival, he had to borrow twenty- 
five cents to buy an axe, and from that day forward had 
worked on without asking favors, until he had become 
independent and comfortable. 

There is a most striking contrast between these exiles, — 
penniless, unaided, in a cold climate, amid unsympathiz' 
ing people, — and those Avho were sent, at great expense, 
across the ocean to an African climate,* then supported 
entirely for six months, and afterwards aided and bolstered 
up by a powerful society, which still expend large sums 
for the support of the Colony. The first have suc- 
ceeded ; the latter have virtually failed. Let the lesson be 
pondered by those who are considering what shall be done 
with the negro. 

But second, there is positive and tangible proof of the 
will and the ability of the colored people to work and sup- 
port themselves, and gather substance even in the hard 
climate of Canada. 

Projjerti/. 
The Mayor of London says : — 

" I think there are about seventy-five colored families here. 
They all pay taxes. They have not all got property, but every 
male over twenty-one pays the road tax of two dollars per 
annum. Some of them keep little huckster shops, but that is 
about as far as they go in that direction. There are none of 



60 

any wealth, though there are a good many who own a single 
lot of land apiece." 

Mr. William Clark, of London, says : — 

" I don't know that there is any pauperism here among the 
colored people. They get work here, and some of them work 
very well indeed. I never knew of any difficulty with them 
here, any more than with white people. I have lived amongst 
them, and never had any difficulty with them at all. Some of 
them are very good, and some very bad — just like other people. 
They compare very favorably with the other laboring classes." 

Col. Stephenson, of St. Catherines, says : — 

" The negroes have furniture, whereas the Irish have none. 
Every copper of money the Irish get, they lay up ; and the 
victuals they eat, they generally go out and beg from the peo- 
ple. I have seen an old woman here begging who had $1,700 
in the bank. You could not get a negro to do that. We don't 
find many paupers among the negroes, as a general thing. 
There is one thing I have noticed ; they cannot bear prosperity. 
If they get a little ahead, they won't work, unless they can get 
higher wages." 

Dr. H. T. Ridley, of Hamilton, says : — 

" I think the colored population are a very quiet, well- 
behaved set of people. My patients are able to pay a moderate 
fee. Full one-half of the colored people, I suppose, are able to 
pay nothing. I think they compare well with the lower Irish." 

In another connection, he says : — 

" Very few of the colored people beg. I do not know of a 
colored man who has come to me for a cent. They assist each 
other. There are a few who own lots in town, but there is no 
colored man here, that I know of, who is considered well off. 
I am one of the six physicians to the hospital, and I do not think 
the colored people send any greater proportion there than the 
whites." 



61 

The town records of Maiden, show that there are in 
all 550 tax-payers in that town, of whom 71 are colored. 
The annual value of the property on which they were 
assessed, in 1863, was ^1,253, on which a tax of 29 per 
cent, was levied, — amounting to ;$f363.3T — or about 
^5.12 to each tax-payer. The total tax of the town was 
^4,916.37; leaving ^4,553.00 to be paid by the whites 
— or an average of ^9.52 to each. Assuming the popu- 
lation given by Mr. Brush to be correct, there is one 
white tax-payer to three and one- third of the white in- 
habitants* and one colored tax-payer to every eleven of 
the colored inhabitants. 

By the books of the assessors of Chatham, it appears 
that the total number of rate-payers in the town for the 
year 1863 was 1,021, of whom 134 were colored. The 
total amount of tax collected was ^10,179.79 ; of which 
the 134 colored rate-payers contributed ^667.45 — or 
;^4.98 apiece, on an average. The 887 white rate-payers 
contributed #9,433.34— or #10.63 apiece. The total 
population of Chatham is given at 4,466, and the colored 
population estimated at 1,300. It thus appears that the 
white tax -payers are about one to every three and a half 
of the white population, and the colored about one to 
every thirteen of the colored population. 

By the books of the town clerk of Windsor, it appears 
that there are 152 colored tax-payers in the town, and 
448 white. The total annual value of the property 
for which the colored people are taxed amounts to #2,648 
— affording a tax of #635.52 ; which, deducted from the 
total tax, (#9,000,) leaves #8,364.48 to be paid by the 
whites. Taking the colored population at 750, this 



62 

shows one tax-payer to every five of the population ; and 
estimating the white population at 3,250, there is one 
white tax-payer to every seven and one-fourth of the 
white population. The average amount paid hy each 
colored tax-payer is ^4.18 ; by each white tax-payer, 
^18.76. 

In Toronto, a city of 44,821 inhabitants, of whom 
about 900 are colored, the books of the tax collectors 
show the following amount paid by colored persons : — 

St. John's ward, j$f665.2i ; St. Andrew's w^ard, ^549.55 ; 
St. Lawrence's ward, ^388 ; St. David's ward, ^37.25 ; St. 
Patrick's ward, #347.63 ; St. George's -ward, #75 95 ; St. 
James's ward, #261.57. Total, #2,345.19. 

In addition to this, an income tax is assessed on all 
colored persons earning over #200 a year. 

We found that only fifteen colored persons deposited 
money in the Savings Banks, averaging #15 each. They 
have use for all their means, and do not hoard. 

But the surest sign of their thrift is the appearance of 
their dwelling-houses, farms, stock, tools and the like. 
In tliese, moreover, we find encouraging signs for the 
negros, because they show that he feels so strongly the 
family instinct, and the desire to possess land and a 
dwelling-place. 

They were badly advised when they settled in suburbs 
by themselves ; and the wiser ones now see that it would 
be better for them, as it doubtless would for the whole 
community, to have their dwellings scattered among those 
of the whites, as they are in Hamilton and Toronto, 
rather than to live in separate quarters, as they do in St. 
Catherines, Chatham, and other places. 



63 

But whether scattered about, or collected iu suburbs, 
the dwellmgs of the refugees are generally superior to 
those of the Irish, or other foreign emigrants of the 
laboring class. Most certainly they are far superior to 
the negro huts upon slave plantations, which many of 
them formerly inhabited. Indeed, in point of neatness 
of premises, they are superior to the dwellings of the 
" poor \vhites," and even of small planters ; a doubtful 
compliment, for those not only lack out-buildings, but are 
usually dirty and comfortless. The refugees for the most 
part live in small, tidy houses; not shanties, with old hats 
sticking out of broken windows. Their habitations are 
not filthy huts, in filthy grounds, but comfortable dwell- 
ings, in good repair. Many are owned by the occupants. 
They have little gardens, which seem well cared for. This 
is the case not only in the Colonies, as they are called, 
where the form and dimensions of the houses are pre- 
scribed by the Company, but in those places where the 
refugees are entirely free to live as they choose. In the 
outskirts of Chatham and other large places are scores of 
small two-story houses, with garden lots, owned and inhab- 
ited by refugees who came to the country penniless. 

We visited many of these houses, and found that 
the decencies of life are well observed, and that the com- 
forts of life are not wanting. Cooking, eating, and sleep- 
ing, are not done in the same room, but in separate ones. 
They are tidily furnished ; and some have carpets on the 
floors ; and curtains at the windows. It is pleasant to 
see the feeble dawnings of taste in rude pictures, and 
simple attempts at ornament. 

Their tables are decently spread, and plentifully sup- 



64 

plied. It is evident that they spend more money upon 
their households than foreign emigrants do. They live 
better ; and they clothe their children better. They say, 
indeed, that this is the reason they do not lay up so 
much money as many Irish and Germans do. 

Says Mrs. Brown, (colored,) of St. Catherines : — 

" I have been here fifteen years, and we have paid taxes all 
the time. A good many of the colored people own then- own 
houses, and have owned them ever since I came here. When 
they came here, of course they were destitute and had nothing. 
Most of them came from the Slave States. There are some 
here who are doing very well. The reason they do not get so 
much property as the Irish is because the Irish will live on 
little, or nothing. They live like pigs, and worse than pigs. 
The colored people can't live, like the Irish, on potatoes and 
salt. They want something to eat, if they have to work. An 
Irishman will take potatoes and salt, and a sup of milk, and 
say nothing about it ; but as a people, we are used to living 
different from that, and can't do it." 

There are exceptions, of course ; and some families, 
especially new comers, live crowded up in one room. 
They cannot do otherwise at first ; but as soon as they 
have secured the necessaries of life, they begin to imitate 
the older settlers, and to look for its comforts, and then 
for some of its luxuries. As a general thing, the condi- 
tion of the house, the abundance of furniture, and the 
presence of ornament, denote the time which the refugee 
has enjoyed freedom. A family arrives to-day, \vithout a 
rag of clothing, except v/hat they wear ; and w^ithout a 
cent of money. Of course, they must huddle into one 
room ; and by a little help from their fellows, feed and 
warm themselves as they best can. In ten years. 



65 

that same family will probably inhabit a decent house, 
with tidy furniture, and a plentiful table. Such has been 
the history of hundreds and thousands of Canadian 
refugees. 

It is difficult to collect any reliable statistics of the 
property of the colored people in the rural districts. 
They are widely scattered, and the tax-rolls do not dis- 
tinguish them from whites. It is certain, however, that 
they are generally thriving ; and it is probable that they 
are doing even better than those who are more closely 
congregated. Some have small gardens near large towns, 
which they help to supply with vegetables. On all 
market days, they are seen going into town with their 
carts, laden with garden stuffs ; the man generally ac- 
companied by his wife or children ; often both, so social 
are they. They form an industrious and useful class. 

x\nother class is formed by the small farmers, who are 
more widely scattered. Little is heard about them, 
except when the prejudice of the Irish, or other rude 
people, is roused to passion by some competition of inter- 
est, or personal collision, and then there is a talk about 
the " nuisance of niggers." 

They generally own the land which they occupy ; and 
in many cases they have paid off the mortgages, and hold a 
clear fee. Indeed, one of the most hopeful signs is the 
general desire to own land, and work for themselves. 

Now and then is seen the miserable cabin of a negro 
squatter, who evidently sleeps by day, and prowls by 
night. This, however, is the exception. Asa general rule, 
the farms of negroes, although inferior to the first-class 
farms of their region in point of cultivation, fences, stock, 

9 



66 

and the like, are quite equal to the average of second- 
class farms. So the colored farmers, though not equal to 
the first-class white farmers, compare very well with the 
average of the second-class. They have not the capital, 
nor the intelligence, nor the skill of the best farmers. 
But they are not lazy, nor stupid, nor thriftless ; on the 
contrary, they keep their lands and premises in tolera- 
ble condition ; and they support themselves without 
recourse to public charity. Such men are valuable mem- 
bers of any agricultural community. If not the best, 
they are far from being the worst. 

We rode through some of the rural districts, and 
stopped at many farm houses. The most remarkable 
thing is that the farm houses of colored people are seldom 
to be distinguished from those of whites by the external 
appearance. There is no special look of poverty or 
slovenliness about them. You have to watch for the 
appearance of some person in order to know, by his color, 
whether it is the house of whites, or not. 

Usually, the condition of the land and premises about 
the house, indicates the length of time which the refugee 
has occupied them. Those wdio have come from the 
United States within a year or two, live in a log cabin, in 
a small cleared lot ; around which is the forest or wild land. 
Older settlers have built houses, and cleared larger fields ; 
and they keep a cow, a pig, and some poultry. A few have 
well-cleared farms and good outbuildings, with plenty of 
farm tools, horses, oxen, cows, and the like. 

The following notes, made on a day's journey through 
a rural district, will give some idea of the people whom 
we met upon the road : — 



67 

" Tuesday, September 15, left Amherstburg for Colchester. 
Before passing out of the township of Maiden, in which Am- 
herstburg is situated, stopped at the farm of Mr. Buckner — a 
colored man. The place is under good cultivation ; has a num- 
ber of fine cattle upon it ; and every thing about indicates thrift 
and care. Further on, called at a log cabin occupied by a 
colored family, who had rented tlie place. The women only 
were at home, who said they were getting along -very well with 
the farm. The younger of the two women was uncommonly 
bright and intelligent, and both of them kind and civil-spoken. 
At another house, saw an old lady, who said she was from Ken- 
tucky, where she had been free, but her husband was a slave. 
She said she had worked harder in Canada, trying to get a start, 
than she ever did in Kentucky. She thouglit the climate not 
so healthy as that of Kentucky, especially for children, who 
took colds, and were somehow carried off, she said, very fast. 
She declared that she would go back to the old home when 
freedom was established in the States. 

Later, stopped at a wayside tavern, kept by French people. 
The woman said the colored people were good neighbors, except 
that they would pilfer small things. Met a man on horseback, 
who said the blacks were poor farmers, and did not do so well 
as the most inferior class of whites. They did not know any 
thing about farming, he said, and when hired, required to be 
told every fifteen minutes what to do and how to do it. He 
thought the climate prejudicial to children. The " dai-kies," 
he said, were charged with stealing a good deal, but he thought 
they did n't steal any more than some white people. He 
thought the thefts of white men were often charged upon the 
blacks. 

Stopped at another tavern, kept by a Frenchman, who said 
the blacks were good-natured, and not disposed to be quarrel- 
some, but given to pilfering. When asked if they were any 
worse in that respect than the whites, he said perhaps they 
were, a little, but it was hard to say which were the worse. 
Here were two fugitives from Kentucky. One of them said he 
had been in the place six years, and worked out as a laborer, 
getting 50 cents a day for common work, 62^ cents for cutting 
corn, and -11 a day for harvesting, and found. He said he 
could not lay by any thing, having a wife and three children to 



68 

support. He was anxious to have a place of his own, he said, 
but had no means to buy one. His cliildren did not go to 
school at all, for there was no school for colored children, and 
the whites would not permit his children to go to their school. 

8aw a little cabin near the road, and a colored man and 
woman, and some children about. On being interrogated, the 
man said he was from North Carolina, and " allowed " he found 
Canada a hard place to get a living in. He would be glad, he 
said, to get back to the States, as soon as he could be free there. 
The woman said she was from Virginia, and that the prejudice 
was " a heap " stronger in Canada than it was at home. The 
people, she said, seemed to think the blacks " wern't folks, any 
way." She was anxious to go back. 

Met a farmer, who said the blacks were the worst people 
round. They wern't good for any thing, unless a man wanted 
them to work, and then, if they were looked after " right sharp," 
they would do pretty well. He did n't know that the blacks 
stole any more than the whites, but thought the whites often 
got clear hy saddling their sins on the backs of the "' darkies." 

Returning, visited and inspected the c(»lored school at 
Amherstburg. Number of scholars on the roll, UO ; average 
attendance, 60." 



Colonies. 

There is another class of colored people to whom no 
reference has yet been made, and they are called the 
'" Colonists." 

The refugees have always received from the govern- 
ment of Canada welcome and protection ; from the better 
class of people, goodwill and justice ; and from a few, 
active friendship and important assistance. These 
friends, with other benevolent persons in the United 
States and Great Britain, have, at various periods, got up 
organizations for the relief and the aid of the refugees. 
These organizations have generally taken the form of 



69 

societies for procuring tracts of land, and building up 
communities of colored people, called colonies. 

The principal of these are the Elgin settlement, at 
Buxton, the Dawn settlement, at Bresden, and the 
Refugees' Home, near Windsor. 

It is evident that the attempts of organized societies to 
settle the colored people in colonies, by themselves, are 
of less interest to the people of the United States, than 
are the attempts of refugees to maintain themselves, 
without any aid. 

It is unknown how much assistance the Colonists 
receive from the money power of societies and the moral 
power of the agents. It is indeed ungracious to criticise, 
where the efforts have been so generous and the success so 
satisfactory; but there are various objections to the plans 
and proceedings of the colonizing societies. The negroes, 
going into an inhabited and civilized country, should not 
be systematically congregated in communities. Their 
natural affinities are strong enough to keep up all desir- 
able relations without artificial encouragement. Experi- 
ence shows that they do best when scattered about, and 
forming a small proportion of the whole community. 

Next, the discipline of the colonies, though it only 
subjects the negroes to what is considered useful appren- 
ticeship, does prolong a dependence which amounts almost 
to servitude ; and does not convert them so surely into 
hardy, self-reliant men, as the rude struggle with actual 
difficulties, which they themselves have to face and to 
overcome, instead of doing so through an agent. 

Taken as a whole, the colonists have cost to somebody 
a great deal of money, and a great deal of effort ; and they 



70 

have not succeeded so well as many who have been 

thrown entirely upon their own resources. 

While commending to careful attention the accounts 
t ... 

given by Mr. King of the colony at Buxton, it is just to 

say that some intelligent persons, friends of the colored 

people, and familiar with their condition, believe that in 

none of the colonies, not even in Buxton, do they 

succeed so well, upon the whole, as those who are thrown 

entirely upon their own resources. 

Nevertheless, these colonies are worthy of more 
attention than we were able to give them. 

We visited Buxton, and received from Mr. King, its 
founder and father, an account of its history and con- 
dition, which will be found, in a condensed form, in the 
Appendix. He reports, and evidently believes fully, 
that the colony has been a perfect success. 

Be this as it may, Buxton is certainly a very inter- 
esting place. Sixteen years ago, it was a wilderness. 
Now, good highways are laid out in all directions through 
the forest ; and by their side, standing back thirty-three 
feet from the road, are about two hundred cottages, all 
built on the same pattern, all looking neat and 
comfortable. Around each one is a cleared space, 
of several acres, which is well cultivated. The fences 
are in good order ; the barns seem well filled ; and cattle, 
and horses, and pigs, and poultry, abound. There are 
signs of industry, and thrift, and comfort, every where ; 
signs of intemperance, of idleness, of want, nowhere. 
There is no tavern, and no groggery ; but there is a chapel 
and school-house. 

Most interesting of all are the inhabitants. Twenty 



71 

years ago, most of them were slaves, who owned nothing, 
not even their children. Now they own themselves ; they 
own their houses and farms ; and they have their wives 
and children about them. They are enfranchised citizens 
of a government which protects their rights. They have 
the great essentials for human happiness, " something to 
love, something to do, and something to hope for ; " and 
if they are not happy, it is their own fault. 

The present condition of all these colonists, as com- 
pared with their former one, is very remarkable ; but no 
limner could desire a stronger contrast for two pictures 
of life than the history of one of them presents. Seven- 
teen years ago, he was a chattel ; a thing to be 
worked and flogged, bought and sold, like a horse. He 
inhabited a wretched hut, with a woman who could 
not be his lawful wife, and with dirty children, begot- 
ten by them, but owned by another, and whom they 
were rearing until large enough for the owner to work 
or to sell. Sad as was his actual condition, there was 
nothing to be hoped for in the future ; and every thing 
to be feared. 

At last, in desperation, he stole away by night from 
his masters plantation in Missouri; and stole, besides 
himself, something for food and covering, which he bore 
on his back ; and also his ■ little boy, whom he carried in 
his arms. He stole also the woman, and the other chil- 
dren, who followed him, trembling with fear and cold, 
through the darkness, and towards the north star. Sad 
procession ! but only one of the many which have been 
continually moving, by night, from the house of bondage, 
towards the land of freedom. 



T2 

1 he flight was long, and painful, and dangerous. Then 
followed years of toil, and poverty, and anxiety. Then 
came, little by little, success, and comfort, and hope. And 
now, the scene liad quite changed ; and we found that man 
standing erect and bold, upon his own well-tilled farm, in 
front of his own house, into which he politely invited us. 
The woman liad become his lawful wife, the proud mistress 
of a tidy household. The dirty toddling chattels had 
grow^n to be comely youth and maidens ; and the little 
boy whom he bore away in his arms, was a fine, manly 
fellow, a student at Knox College, but now spending his 
vacation at home. 

The man took a natural pride in his prosperity; and 
dilated upon the fertility of his acres, the excellence of 
his stock, and the fleetness of his horses. 

When the pressing invitation to stay and partake liis 
hospitality was declined, on the ground of lack of time, 
he said, with pardonable vanity, " I can send you in a 
wagon of wy/ oivn, and behind a pair of my own horses, 
who will take you to Chatham, in less time than you can 
get there with your team." 

Some of the refugees are 

Mechanics. 

There are plasterers and white-Avashers in all the large 
towns; and there are also a few excellent blacksmiths, 
and some tolerable carpenters. We found one man run- 
ning a windmill, which he had constructed with his own 
hands ; and which, though very shaky in appearance, 
furnished good power. 

A colored man is said by many to be the best gunsmith 
in Canada West. He certainly makes beautiful pistols. 



7:3 

The most interesting sight in the way of mechanical 
industry was in Hamilton, where a young man named 
Hill had established himself. He is a fine, athletic 
young man, who must have come of good stock, for, said 
he, " The whole of our family bought ourselves." 

" I came away from Virginia," continued ho, " because I 
didn't hke the condition of things there. I didn't like to be 
trod upon. A colored man there, let him be free born or not, 
must carry a scrap of paper in his pocket to show that he is free, 
or he cannot move. He is not really free, because if he wants to 
go to New York, for instance, he must get a white man to 
vouch for his freedom. 

" We are manufacturers of tobacco, and there are merchants 
here who have agreed to take all we can manufacture, and to 
encourage us all they possibly can. I came from the South 
in September, 1853, and my family followed in December. 
]\ry wife had to get a voucher for her freedom, before she could 
come on. Sometimes they put obstructions in the way of free 
people coming away, if they are so disposed. I was in slavery 
until I was about eighteen years old. There were four uncles, 
myself and mother, and another sister of my uncles. My 
uncles paid fifteen hundred dollars apiece for themselves. 
They bought themselves three times. They got cheated out of 
their freedom in the first two instances, and were put in jail at 
one time, and were going to be sold down South, right away ; 
but parties who were well acquainted with us, and knew we 
had made desperate struggles for our freedom, came forward 
and advanced the money, and took us out of jail, and put us 
on a footing so that we could go ahead and earn money to pay 
the debt. We have an uncle in Pittsburg, who has accumu- 
lated a good deal of property since he obtained his freedom. 
My uncles bought me and my mother, as well as themselves. I 
saw a great deal of slavery ; and not only that, but my parents 
had to undergo a great deal of hardship in their earlier days. 
I never suffered any particular hardship myself. I had a 
grandfather who had long been free, and when the boys grew 
up, he would take them and learn them a trade, and keep them 
out of the hands of the traders ; and when they became men 

10 



74 

and women, having had his industry instilled into them, they 
■would be able and willing to work." 

We found Mr. Hill, and his three colored partners in 
business, working very earnestly and vigorously, with 
brawny arms, in a tobacco manufactory of their own. 
They had recently hired a building at two hundred and 
fifty dollars a year ; made most of the wood-work of their 
machinery themselves, and started their business. By 
diligent and faithful work, they soon drew custom, and 
their prospect seemed excellent. They employed about 
twenty hands, among whom were three white boys ; for, 
said Hill, " hands are scarce, you see, and wc have to 
take anij ive can get. We are adding to our numbers, 
and as soon as all the machinery is going, we expect to 
have fifty workmen." 

The sight of this establishment would astonish those 
who think negroes too stupid for business, and too 
lazy for work. It was planned and carried on by col- 
ored people, with money of their own earning. It 
was marked by the order, silence, and earnestness 
which pervade all good workshops. There was no 
talking, laughing, or looking about. Every man was 
busy at his task. Some were heaving down the press 
with ponderous iron levers ; some were filling boxes ; 
others nailing them up; some assorting the stock, and 
others rolling it into plugs. Each seemed to have the 
kind of work best suited to him ; the men using their 
brawny arms for lifting and pulling ; the boys their tiny 
fingers tor picking and sorting. They were paid in 
proportion to the worth of their work ; and each worked 
" with a will." 



75 

" We mean to succeed," said Hill, " and we think we 
shall ; for we understand the business, and mean to do 
better work than others do ; and merchants will find that 
out fast enough." The calm assurance with which he 
spoke, would have secured good names on the back of 
his note, if he had been unwise enough to ask credit. 

The history of this family shows the effect of culture 
upon good stock. Not all the depressing and demoral- 
izing influences of a slave community could repress their 
energy or prevent their success. 

Another class is that of 

Sailors. 

The good will of " old salts " to negroes is proverbial. 
In the old merchant packet, the steward was usually a 
colored man ; and so was the cook, who w^as always 
dubbed " doctor." His " caboose " was a favorite resort in 
dog-watch ; and he was the life of the forecastle. The 
principal objection to shipping a colored man was, that 
he was apt to charm some Desdemona, who would insist 
upon marrying him and keeping him in England ; leav- 
ing the ship to make the homeward passage minus 
steward, or " doctor ;" unless, perchance, some former 
victim had become disenchanted, and inclined to fly to 
America for freedom. 

Even now, in the navy, your " true blue " will mess 
with the negro, and rather likes his company. The 
fresh-water sailors on the lakes and rivers seem to 
share the liberality of "blue-w^ater salts," and not to 
object to " colored company," unless, indeed, there is too 
much of it. 



76 

It is curious to observe how here, as elsewhere, the 
individual negro awakens sympathy as a fellow man ; that 
one, in a " mess," is a boon companion ; but that two or 
three, excite antagonism and awaken prejudice. The root 
of the evil is not in any natural antipathy, but that " busi- 
ness " is conducted in the spirit of antagonism instead of 
co-operation. 

There are many of the refugees who " go down to the 
lakes in shi})s, that do business on the great waters ;" and 
these fresh-water sailois earn good wages in summer. 

No opportunity presented of seeing this class, but the 
general report about them was, that they " loafed round 
in winter, and spent all their earnings." This is proof 
that they do work and earn money; and if they spend it 
just as other tars do, the fact only proves that the voca- 
tion of sailor affects blacks as it does whites. 

Captain Averill, of Maiden, says : — 

" Colored men do very well for deck hands, and firemen, and 
the hke of that. They are the best men we have. We have to 
pay them the same as white men, and I prefer them to some 
portion of our citizens. We have to keep them separate from 
white sailors. We cannot mix them. We always either carry 
a black crew or a white one. We will take a crew of firemen, 
darkies, or a crew of deck hands, darkies. They are fully as 
good as white sailors, in regard to temperance. We can put 
more confidence in them than we can in white men. The 
colored men are not much inclined to lay up their wages. 
They spend their money just about as fast as they go 
along. Some of them will stay about a boat all summer 
long, and not take up any wages of consequence ; and when 
you can get a man like that he is very valuable, because he will 
influence the others. They don't get to places of confidence. 
We never make them mates. None of them own any crafts." 

More evidence might be cited ; but enough has been 



77 

given to show that with freedom, and the ordinary 
motives for industry, the colored people will be diligent 
and thrifty. 

It is plain, however, that upon the whole, the physical 
organization of a mixed breed like this one, does not adapt 
men to hard and continuous muscular labor ; and that 
they will naturally seek and find in the industrious 
ranks of society, certain places not requiring such labor, 
which they can fill profitably to the community and to 
themselves. 

Section 4. 
Intellectual and Moral Condition. 

An unusually large proportion of the colored popula- 
tion of Canada is made up of adults. Those from the 
Free States had very little schooling in youth ; those 
from the Slave States, none at all. Considering these 
things, it is rather remarkable that so many can now 
read and write. Moreover, they show their esteem for 
instruction by their desire to obtain it for their chil- 
dren. They all wish to have their children go to school, 
and they send them all the time that they can be spared. 

Canada West has adopted a good system of public 
instruction, which is well administered. The common 
schools, though inferior to those of several of the States 
of the United States, are good. Colored children are 
admitted to them in most places ; and where a separate 
school is opened for them, it is as well provided by gov- 
ernment with teachers and apparatus as the other schools 
are. Notwithstanding the growing prejudice against 
blacks, the authorities evidently mean to deal justly by 



78 

them in regard to instruction ; and even those who 
advocate separate schools, promise that they shall be 
equal to white schools. 

We had no adequate means of ascertaining exactly 
how many colored scholars there are in proportion to 
the whole population ; but conclude, from what data 
could be had, that it is almost as large as the proportion 
of white scholars to the white population. In Chatham, 
for instance, there is one white scholar to 11 1 of the 
white population; and one colored scholar to 12 of the 
colored population. The average daily attendance of 
scholars in the colored schools is seventy per cent. ; the 
average attendance in the white schools is a fraction 
over seventy. Now, in Chatham, the colored people are 
quite as unfavorably situated as in any other places ; and 
considering that they are all of the industrious class, 
who need the services of their children, the number of 
scholars they send, and their average of daily attendance, 
are high. It is generally stated, however, that the 
black children do not attend school so many years as the 
white do ; and this is doubtless for the reason above 
assigned, that their parents more generally have need of 
their services at home. 

The colored children, in the mixed schools, do not 
differ in their general appearance and behavior from 
their white comrades. They are usually clean and 
decently clad. They look quite as bright as the whites ; 
and are perhaps a little more mirthful and roguish. The 
association is manifestly beneficial to the colored chil- 
dren. Says Mr. McCullum, principal of the high school 
at Hamilton, — 



79 

" I am impressed with the idea that colored persons brought 
up among whites look better than others ; their rougher, 
harsher features disappear. I think that colored children, 
brought up among white people, look better than their parents." 

The appearance, and the acquirements of colored 
children in the separate schools, are less satisfactory 
They do not look so tidy; and are not so well ordered as 
children of the same class in the white schools. More- 
over, they are more backward in their studies. 

The colored people were unwise in asking for separate 
schools at all ; and those who asked for colored teachers 
made a further mistake ; because the chance of aettino- a 
good one was small, the range of selection being very 
limited. Had they merely required good teachers, irre- 
spective of color, they would have had more men like 
Mr. Sinclair, to elevate, as well as teach their children. 

They must, in justice to the whites, acknowledge that 
in the matter of separate schools and of separate 
churches, they themselves have yielded to the natural 
affinities of race which lie at the root of those very 
prejudices about which they complain so much. They 
must acknowledge, moreover, that the authorities en- 
deavor to provide as good instruction for their children 
as for white children. 

AVith regard to the comparative mental capacity of col- 
ored and white children, teachers differ in opinion. Dr. 
McCaul, president of the university at Toronto, bears very 
strong testimony in favor of the first. He says : — 

" I can give you my own experience in regard to the capacity 
of the blacks. There was a boy here from Upper Canada by 
the name of Galigo, who, I think I am safe in saying, was a 



80 

thorough black. He did exceedingly well, and manifested a 
capacity equal to any white boy of his standing. We had a 
mulatto here this last examination, who took the ' double-first ' 
in both classics and mathematics. " He has very great ability. 
There are very few whites who can do what he did. It would 
be considered a rare thing to have a ' double-first ' got once in 
five years, and that amongst the highest ' honor-men.' The 
' honor-men,' as we call them, are in the ratio of one to thirty. 
There was very great competition, but he carried off the prize. 
He expected to come out first of all in mathematics, but he 
failed in that ; but he came out in the first class of honors, 
in both classics and mathematics, as no one else in the year 
did ; and I do not think there have been more than three 
instances in which it has been done since the university was 
opened, twenty years ago. Laferty is the young man's name. 
His father was a man of very humble capacity, and, I think, a 
full black. There was another man who was a student here, 
who did very well in medicine — Dr. Augusta. There was 
another medical student here, — Mr. Abbott, — who got along 
very well. I do not hesitate at all to say, with regard to Mr. 
Laferty, that he is fully equal to any white man, and, as I 
mentioned to you, far superior to the average of them. It was 
a great subject of astonishment to some of our Kentucky 
friends, who came over here last year in October, when they 
saw this mulatto get the first prize for Greek verse, which he 
had to recite ; and he was the crack man of the day, all the 
others listening to him with great pleasure." 

Mr. McCuUum, of Hamilton, says : — 

" I have spoken to the teachers at tlie school, in reference to 
tlie colored pupils, and they all coincide in the opinion I have 
given, that they are fully. equal to the others, in mental attain- 
ments, and in their conduct and discipline at school." 

Mr. Sinclair, principal of the school at Chatham, 
says : — 

" On the whole, I think the colored children learn about the 
same as whites. The only difference I have observed is this — 



81 

that in one week they learn faster than the whites ; but then, 
they require frequent reviews, so that, on the whole, it is about 
the same." 

This is the testimony of enlightened men, who have 
given attention to the matter ; but they are men of liberal 
and generous natures, whose sympathies are with the 
colored people, because of their need of them. Other 
teachers think less favorably of the mental capacity of 
coloicd children. 

But, however it may be in schools, and in regard to 
the power of acquiring knowledge, the theory of the 
mental equality of colored and white people does not 
seem to be confirmed by the condition of the refugees in 
Canada. Some of them have been there a long time ; 
and a young generation is growing up. They do not 
lack ambition ; and yet they do not rise to stations 
requiring mental vigor. Great allowance, indeed, is 
to be made for the bitter prejudice against them, and for 
other disadvantages. But on the other hand, it is to be 
considered that when they are dispersed among the 
whites, the prejudice is not called out. And then it 
must be admitted, that among people of culture, there 
is a disposition to give them fair play. Nay, such people 
would probably regard a young man of real force of 
character with favor, on account of his being colored ; and 
would help him on. Two or three of this kind have been 
so treated ; but all must admit that the number of supe- 
rior young men who have appeared is very small indeed. 

The colored people of Canada, like those of the Free 
States, have sharp eyes and ears. They are quick of 
preception; very imitative; and they rapidly become 
11 



' 82 

intelligent. But they are rather knowing, than thinking 
people. They occupy useful stations in life ; but such as 
require quick perceptions, rather than strong sense. 

We have not the data for the final solution of the 
question of mental equality. Time alone can supply 
them. Not only must all the depressing influences of 
slavery be removed from one generation, but there must 
be several generations of free men ; of men free from the 
consequences of slavery, and free from social ostracism, 
before that question can be determined. But, admitting 
that the colored breed has physical vitality enough to 
persist and to maintain itself in the competition of com- 
■ ing generations for subsistence, it is not certain tliat its 
members will have moral force enough to recover from 
the depression which so long existence as social pariahs 
has produced. Be this as it may, we have now, for the 
solution of the question, only limited observation and 
a priori inferences. These seem to point to the mental 
inferiority of the half breeds, if not of the negroes. 

An opinion is held by some teachers of colored schools 
in the Northern States, that their scholars advance as fast 
as whites in all the elementary studies, but fail when 
they come to studies which tax the higher mental powers, 
or the reasoning and combining faculties. That is, that 
the perceptive faculties, which take cognizance of things, 
and of their names and qualities, are as keen in the 
blacks as in the whites ; but that the reasoning faculties, 
which generalise from the knowledge gathered by the 
perceptive faculties, are not. 

This is probably true with regard to pure blacks, if 
not to mulattoes also. Now, the perceptive faculties are 



83 

nearly allied to the instincts, which men share equally 
Avith other animals ; while the reasoning and reflecting 
faculties are superior to them, and are midway between 
that animal nature common to men and brutes which 
holds us down to the earth with them, and those higher 
qualities, or peculiarly human attributes, which lift us 
towards heaven. Superior activity of the lower or per- 
ceptive faculties may arise from greater development of 
that part of the animal organization which keeps us in 
relation with the organisms next below us in the scale of 
creation. 

But this question of mental equality between pure 
blacks and whites is an ethnological one — a question 
about races ; while we have only to do with a breed, — 
that of miilattoes. This breed in its mental organization 
seems to be partially emasculated. It has less of the 
elements out of which grow ferocity, but also less of 
energy and virilty, than pure blacks or whites. 

Mulattoes seem to be, among races, what eunuchs are 
among individual men. They have less animalization 
than blacks, and less spiritualization than whites. 

In concluding this part of the subject, a statement 
may be made, which, standing alone, is worth nothing ; 
but which, if supported by wider observation, may be of 
some value. The colored persons met with in Canada, who 
had most force of character, were either nearly negroes, 
or nearly whites ; that is, they bore strongly marked 
characteristics of one or the other race ; not merely in 
the color of the skin, but in the character of other parts 
of their organization. 



84 

Moral Condition — Criminal Statistics. 

It is difficult to convey a correct idea of the mental 
status of the refugees ; but still more to give satisfactory 
evidence concerning their moral condition. Bare statis- 
tics are worth little. School returns have to be taken 
with great allowance ; prison returns with still greater. 
With proper allowances, criminal statistics are worth 
something. 

The Provincial Penitentiary at Kingston has been 
established twenty-seven years ; during which time 375 
colored persons have been committed, for the following 
offences : — 

Arson, 5 ; murder, 9 ; rape, or assault \\ ith intent, 1 4 ; 
felony, 127; larceny, 220. Of these, 286 weje born in 
the United States; 81 in British America; and 8 in the 
West Indies. 

At the time of committal, fifty-seven of the convicts 
were between 10 and 20 years of age; one hundred and 
seventy were between 20 and 30 ; ninety-one were 
between 30 and 40 ; thirty-six were between 40 and 50 ; 
sixteen were between 50 and 60 ; and five were between 
60 and 70. 

Dr. Litchfield, the very obliging Superintendent of 
the Asylum for Criminal Lunatics, connected with the 
Penitentiary, says : — 

" I cannot draw any reliable inference from the records, in 
respect to the comparative criminality of the white, red, or 
black man ; because tlie census returns in regard to the African 
and Indian races, in the Province, at the time the last census 
was taken, are so manifestly wrong, that no correct calculation 
can be based upon them." 



85 

There are, at this time, 64 colored convicts in the Pen- 
itentiary. Taking the colored population as set down in 
the census of 1860, this gives one convict to every 191 
inhabitants. But estimating the colored people at 15,000, 
(and this is a very low estimate,) it gives only one in 234f. 

With regard to the conduct of the colored convicts. 
Dr. Litchfield says : — '■ 

" The negro, as met with in Canada, is uniformly docile, 
courteous, kindly, and submissive ; and he exhibits those qual- 
ities in a marked degree, in the Penitentiary." 

This is corroborated by the County Jailers, who gen- 
• erally say that colored prisoners are more docile than 
white. 

Statistics of minor offences, collected from the jail 
returns, will be found in the Appendix. 

Any inferences from them as to the moral status of 
the colored people should be made with due allowance 
for the fact that a large portion of them arrived in Canada 
utterly destitute, and also for the significant fact stated 
in the testimony of the Hon. George Brown, M. P. Said 
he:— 

" I regard the colored people of Canada as a useful class of 
citizens. All their vices grow out of their former condition of 
slavery. Thieving is natural to them. But one thing you 
must bear in mind ; it luill not do to trust the criminal statistics^ 
for if a man ivith a black face is put into the box, it is almost 
tantamount to conviction." 

It will be seen that the most common offences of 
which the colored people are convicted are not those of 
violence, implying ferocity -and passion, — not crimes 
against the person, but against property. 



86 

In public opinion, they lack that form of honesty 
which those who consider money as the chief end of man, 
regard as highest in the scale of virtues. It is curious 
to observe how vehemently the refugees are denounced in 
Canada, as the slaves are in the United States, for their 
utter insensibility to the right of property. Heligious 
people, north and south, marvel that even converted 
and pious slaves do not abstain from picking and stealing ; 
as if those who never in their lives knew anything of 
meufn, should suddenly know all aljout iuum. 

We boast of our white national virtues, and acknowl- 
edge that they grow out of freedom, but forget that the 
vices of slaves grow out of slavery ; or, as has been better 
said — " The customs of a free people are part of their 
freedom ; those of an enslaved people are part of their 
slavery."* Men going from slavery to freedom cannot 
change their habits as they change their garments. And it 
is to be remembered that the offences against property, 
with which by public voice the refugees are charged, are 
those so common in the south, and which grow directly 
out of slavery. 

Respect of property is grafted by civilization upon 
natural morality. It needs culture, and is of slow growth. 
The lowest savages respect no kinds of property; and 
the highest but few. Now, the supposed interest of the 
slaveholder has been to keep the negroes as near the 
savage state as is consistent with the profitable culture of 

* Les coutumes d'un peuple esclave sont une partie de leur esclavage ; 
celles d'un peuple libra sont une partie de leur liberie. — Montesquieu, Esprit 
des Lois, Liv. XIX. Chap. 27. 



87 

cotton and sugar. He wants the negro not to steal, for- 
getting that a man must own something in order to have 
any adequate conception of what theft means. 

The immorality of theft, however, has its degrees ; and 
these seem to depend upon the natural right of owner- 
ship, rather than upon the conventional or legal right. 
The right of a man to his life and freedom, and to his 
young children, are manifest and indisputable, for they 
depend not upon human laws. No man can be intelli- 
gent enough to cultivate cotton, without feeling this 
instinctively, whether he forms a clear conception of it 
or not. He must feel, too, that the rights of property 
grow less sacred as they affect the owner less closely — as 
right in clothes, wares, horses, dogs, and the like ; until 
they become very doubtful in fish and game, and things 
fera natura. The owner, in his daily practice, violates 
the most sacred right of property, by taking the slave's 
labor without pay ; and the slave imitates him by vio- 
lating the less sacred right of property, in stealing what 
he can lay his hands on. The fact that there is any 
honesty at all left among them is proof of the natural 
strength of their moral nature. 

The' slaves come to Canada with these habits, which 
seem to have been made a part of their very nature by 
generations of servitude ; and yet they rapidly lay them 
aside. Being free from the debasing influences of fear, 
and in the midst of a community where the rights of 
property are ranked among the most sacred things, as 
soon as they earn anything honestly, they feel the pride 
of ownership, and learn to respect the rights of others. 



88 

Religion. 

It has been well said, that the slaveholders used the 
very virtues of the negroes to hold them in slavery. The 
master, like the devil, knew how to quote scripture for 
wicked purposes; and moulded the religious belief of 
the negroes into such form that he could appeal to it to 
compass his own ends, in violation of the spirit of true 
religion. 

It is among the proofs of the strong religious nature of 
the negroes, that their faith endures shocks which would 
upset that of ordinary men. Slaves of pious, prayerful 
masters, have grown to manhood in the firm belief that 
it would be a sin against Heavento leave the service of a 
master who exacts life-long toil without reward, and who 
would sell one of their children as he would sell a cow 
or a pig, when he wanted cash. 

A touching instance of the struggle between what he 
believed to be a religious obligation to serve his mistress 
and a natural longing for freedom, is to be found in the 
narrative of Thomas Johnson, a Canadian refugee. He 
was so intelligent and faithful, that he was entrusted with 
the management of the farm. He came to the conclusion 
that he had a right to free his wife and three yon.ingest 
children, and therefore got them off to Canada. He, 
himself, remained more than a year, and performed what 
he believed to be his duty to his mistress. Her friends, 
however, having an eye to their own future ])roperty, 
feared that if she should die, the slave would prefer to 
go and work for his own wife and children, rather than 
for them, and so they persuaded her to convert him into 
cash. Finding he was to be sold, " down south," he escaped 



89 

across the river into Ohio. But his conscience troubled 
him. He could not bear the thought that he, who had 
been trusted on account of his honesty, should become a 
mean runaway; and he sent word that if instead of being 
" sent south," he could be sold to a certain man in the 
neighborhood, whom he thought to be humane, he would 
go back and finish his earthly pilgrimage in bondage. 
While waiting for the reply, he thought he would visit 
his wife and children, and take a last farewell ; but when 
he found himself in Canada and really a free man, the 
natural bonds of affection proved stronger than those of 
a perverted religious sense, and kept him there, to dis- 
charge his duties to himself and his family.* 

There are many touching instances of slaves who had 
borne good religious and moral characters, when forced 
by some gross outrage to run away, throwing themselves 
on the ground, and bemoaning their downfall, as they 
supposed — " I, an elder, — I, whom master and everybody 
trusted, — I to become a mean runaway ! " &c. 

Churches^ 8^c. 
Whenever a few refugees congregate together, the first 
thing they do in common is to provide for public wor- 
ship. They have a passion for a church. Not merely a 
church spiritual, but a church material; and 'it must be 
good-looking, too. Wherever there are a few families 
gathered together, they get up a meeting-house of some 
kind. When they increase in numbers, they split up 
into various sects, and each sect must have a meeting- 
house of its own. They do not wait for the first one to 

*Drew, pp. 379, 380,-381. 
12 



90 

become full ; for none of them do become full, because the 
people subdivide, and swarm off. 1 hey expend an undue 
and unreasonable part of their time and substance in 
building churches ; and their zeal leads them to go beg- 
ging for aid in the work. Their ministers have canvassed 
the United States and England, contribution box in 
hand ; and by appealing to sectarian zeal, got the means 
of building up tabernacles of brick or wood, trusting to 
their own zeal for gathering a congregation. All this 
shows that the religious nature of these people, being but 
imperfectly developed, needs to be exhibited in the 
concrete form. 

They improve, however, in this respect, under free- 
dom, and manifest their religious instinct under higher 
forms than slaves do. It is a common remark that the 
religion of the negroes in slavery is purely emotional; 
that it docs not prevent sinfid lives; and that the most 
pious of them lie and steal without hesitation and with- 
out remorse. A little reflection will show that it could 
not well be otherwise. The religious instinct is certainly 
very strong in the negro, and it must have gratification 
in some outward manifestation; either in the lowest form 
of adoration of God, to secure personal preference with 
Him, here and hereafter ; or in duty to God, shown by 
obeying the natural laws of conscience and morality as 
His laws ; or in love to God, shown in good works and 
love to man. In which of these forms the religious 
instinct shall be manifested, whether the lowest or the 
highest, depends, of course, upon the degree of inward 
culture, and the nature of outward influences. The mas- 
ters know that the religious instinct of the slave cannot 



91 

be suppressed, and they seek to divert its manifestation 
in such way as will least affect the market value of the 
man. They withhold culture, stifle thought, and feed 
the religious appetite with dry dogmas and creeds. Of 
course, the instinct, so confined, can manifest itself only 
in the lowest form ; and the slave's religion must be such 
as touches him and his personal welfare, here and here- 
after. His God must be personal and mighty ; but not 
necessarily spiritual and holy. His heaven must be 
material and gorgeous, but his bare belief must be a 
ticket of admission. His hell must be very hot for 
others, but easy of escape for him. 

The higher form of manifestation of the religious 
instinct, in the development of conscience and moral 
sense, is hardly possible among slaves, except in those 
rare cases where spontaneous development amounts to 
moral genius, and makes the man a perfect law unto 
himself. With an ordinary slave, the moral sense can- 
not develop itself, and rule the life. Continual fear, and 
the cravings of ungratified animal instincts, j)revent it. 
He must live, and evade painful work and stripes, rather 
than not lie. He must have bread enough to eat, rather 
than not steal it. The denial to him of the natural 
rights of man prevents any exercise of the correlative 
duties, and of course any clear understanding of them. 
Like many free men, the main thing with him is to be 
right Godward, and with a view to heaven, no matter if 
he be all wrong manward ; and with better reason than 
others have, because, even without definite consciousness 
of the fact, he feels that all men are wrong towards him. 

As to the highest form of manifestation of the reli- 



92 

gious instinct, love to God shown in good works and in 
love to man, it is hardly possible to the ordinary mortal 
who owns nothing — not even his time, his children, nor 
himself. With all the lower and selfish propensities and 
desires for personal happiness thwarted, yet ever craving 
gratification, how can the higher ones have exercise and 
growth 1 

The efi^cct of freedom upon the Canadian refugees has 
been to lessen the manifestation of the religious instinct 
in the lower or merely emotional forms, and to increase 
it in the higher forms of conscience, morality, and good 
works. Love of God manifests itself less in care about 
themselves, and anxiety about their own future condition, 
and more in care for others. Their piety is less nasal, 
and more practical. They pray less vehemently, but lie 
and steal less readily. They profess religion less, and 
practise it more. Here is one instance in which the 
religious instinct manifested itself in the form of pious 
work and the performance of duty, rather than in mere 
emotion and noisy demonstration. 

There was a large gathering of colored people at a 
sort of Methodist love feast to celebrate the completion 
of a church. The building of the church had been a 
long and painful business. They had been much per- 
plexed about the w^ays and means, and each one had 
exerted himself to the utmost. After the usual prayer 
and hymn, there was an inspiriting exhortation by the 
pastor, and then the people were urged " to express 
themselves." One after another got up and spoke simply 
and earnestly, but very forcibly ; and every one congrat- 
ulated himself upon having been humbly instrumental in 



93 

" getting up the church." They thanked God that they 
had been able to render help in that good work. The 
pastor, an emotional man, but clearly inferior to niany of 
his flock in point of mind and character, tried hard to 
stir up some stronger emotion, and to bring out noisy 
demonstration by interrupting the speakers with " That's 
right, brother ! " " Glory to God ! " " Hallelujah ! " and 
the like. But he had no success. The consciousness of 
good works gave more satisfaction than windy declara- 
tions of faith and hope. As a last resort, he struck up 

" John Brown's body lies mouldering in the grave, 
His soul is marching on," &c. 

And in this all joined with great enthusiasm ; men, women 
and children shouting out the chorus heartily. The con- 
crete Christianity shown in the old hero's self-sacrifice 
was comprehensible to their religious sense. 

Again, their societies for the relief of new comers, or 
of the feeble and destitute, their private charities, their 
attentions to the sick, their tributes to the memory of the 
dead, are all ways through which their religious instincts 
find gratification in action. If these, or such as these, 
were wanting, of course the instinct would crave gratifi- 
cation in mere emotional manifestations. 

It is further charged, that the slaves are incapable of 
vital religion, because the most pious of them so fre- 
quently lead unchaste lives. But the fountain can rise no 
higher than its source. The religious instinct of a servile 
class cannot develop itself in any higher form than that 
which it assumes in the dominant class, and which 
governs the relations between them. It cannot be high. 



94 

if these grow out of low and selfish motives. It cannot 
be pure, if the relations between the classes are impure. 
Now, it is notorious, that in one respect, the relation is 
disgustingly impure. No class with any claim to gentle 
blood ever so demeaned itself as our slaveholders do. No 
men, claiming to be gentlemen, ever so defiled themselves. 

It is commonly asserted, that in the South, very 
few white men grow up chaste, and that chastity 
is unknown among the slaves. This may be exag- 
gerated, but it is certain tliat the inevitable ten- 
dency of American slavery is not only to bring 
about promiscuous intercourse among the bkxcks, and 
between black women and white men, but also to 
involve white women in the general depravity, and to 
lower the standard of female purity. Southern gentle- 
men, and Turkish gentry, both indulging in gross 
personal licentiousness, think they secure superior virtue 
among women of their own caste by certain social 
restraints, and by ferocious vengeance upon the violators 
of their honor ; and both are mistaken. The subject is 
repulsive, but whoever examines critically the evidence of 
the social condition of the Slave States, sees that the 
vaunted superior virtue of Southern women is mere 
boast and sham. 

Nature cannot be cheated ; virtue cannot be made to 
flourish in a vitiated social atmosphere ; and it is vitiated 
through every stratum of slaveholding society. Out of 
this corrupt community came the crowds of colored 
refugees within our military lines, who are found to be 
so grossly dissolute that some good men despair of them, 
and adopt the slaveholders' doctrine, that the negro is 



95 

not capable of that moral culture wliicli makes licen- 
tiousness seem shocking, and makes personal purity 
essential to self-respect. But, out of this atmosphere 
came also the free colored people of the North, who, in 
spite of political disfranchisement and other disadvan- 
tages, already begin to show the effect of breathing a 
better atmosphere by their growth in moral purity. Out 
of this atmosphere came also the Canadian refugees, who 
have already shown that with freedom, and a high social 
standaid before them, they tend upward to virtue as surely 
as whites do in like circumstances. They show it by set- 
ting themselves in families ; by respecting the sanctity of 
marriage ; and by general improvement of morals. 
There are hundreds and hundreds of families whose lives 
are above reproach. We found there men of natural 
refinement, living happily and securely in the marriage 
state, who declared to us that they had always shrunk 
from the idea of marrying while in slavery, because they 
could feel no assurance about the previous purity of 
young women, and no security against forcible violation 
of their domestic honor. 

Treatment of Women. 
When freed from the corrupting influences of slavery, 
the kindly nature of the negro makes him m.ore ready to 
render justice and respect to woman, than tlie more 
selfish nature of the white races allow them to do. The 
courtesy of the free colored men to their women is well 
known in the United States ; and it is even more marked 
in Canada. Indeed, the respect paid to women by 
colored men, as soon as they become free, is one of the 



96 

most hopeful signs for their race ; a sign which the 
the North American Indians seldom give. A striking 
instance of this is shown in Liberia. Mr. Cowan met 
there many whom he had formerly known in Kentucky, 
and he says there was a change in them for the better. 
The change was in their manliness, their respect for each 
other, and " the respect of the men for the women.'"^ 
The Constitution of Liberia declares — 

" That the property of which a woman may be possessed at 
the time of her marriage, and also that of which she may after- 
wards become possessed, otherwise than by her husband, shall 
not be held responsible for his debts, whether contracted before 
or after marriage. Nor shall the property thus intended to be 
secured to the woman be alienated otherwise than by her free 
and voluntary consent ; and such alienation may be made by 
her, either by sale or devise, or otherwise." 

The Constitution further sets forth, that 

" Adultery, the seduction of a wife or daughter, and the 
breach of a contract, engagement or promise to marry, are 
injuries of a peculiar nature, and partake of a criminal char- 
acter, and actions in regard to them partake of a criminal 

character." 

There is a most interesting fact connected with these 
provisions. At the instance of the Colonization Society, an 
eminent juristf drew up the Constitution for the colonists, 
and it was sent to Afiica, and submitted for their adop- 
tion. But the original draft contained none of these 
provisions securing the rights of women. They were 
inserted by a committee of colored men in Liberia. 

* " Liberia as I Found it." p. 63. 

f Professor Greenleaf, of Cambridge, Mass. 



97 



GENTLE DISPOSITION OP^ REFUGEES. 

Akin to their religious character, there are certain 
moi-al qualities in the negro which are strongly exhibited 
by the Canadian refugees. Among these are their for- 
giving tempers, and their affectionate dispositions. 

The idea has been advanced in this paper, that the cross 
between white and negro races serves to lower the tone of 
the whole animal nature of the progeny, and give less 
manly force to the intellect than is possessed by either 
parent race. But whatever may be its effect upon the 
mental powers, it does not lessen the moral capacities, 
but, on the contrary, it seems, by softening some of the 
animal passions, to prepare men for a mission of love. 
No white race has ever yet learned to turn the unsmitten 
check to the smiter; a black one may. The mulattoes 
do not show so much ferocity as still lingers m the most 
civilized white races, and which is sure to burst out 
when they are hard pushed by oppression or want. It 
is this lack of ferocity which has enabled the slaveholders 
to pusli oppression in some parts of the country to the 
utmost limit of human endurance, without danger to 
themselves ; for they knew it was the worm and not the 
adder upon which they trod. 

Canada is full of men and women who, in the first 
half of their lives, were witnesses and sufferers of such 
indignities and wrongs as would burn into most white 
men's souls, and make them pass the last half in plotting 
vengeance. Not so these people. They cherish no spirit 
■ of vengeance, and seem to have no grudge against their 
oppressors. The memory and recital of their wrongs do 
not arouse such bitter feelings, and call out such maledic- 

13 



98 

tions, as would certainly be heard from white men of 
similar experience. 

Only a single instance is recollected in which a feeling 
of unsatisfied vengeance was manifested; but many 
could be recalled where the old master and mistress were 
spoken of with kindness, and a regret expressed that 
they would not be seen again. 

The testimony of Mrs. Wilkinson is a case in point. 

" I was raised," said she, " in Winchester, Virginia ; I was 
treated kindly by tlie Dutchmen with whom I lived, and they 
freed me after my husband ran away, and gave me my son, 
when he was about three years old. My husband came here 
because he wanted to be free. He was not treated right. I was 
living very well — same as if I was free, although they hadn't 
given me my free papers. I had no hardships. Tiiere were 
two sets of children, and when the old gentleman was dead, tlie 
second set of cliildren thought that they and their mother better 
give me my freedom and let me go, because, if she died, they 
didn't know but the fust set of children might come in and 
enslave me. 1 was twenty-eight years old wlien I was freed. 

" I was over here twenty-one years, and then ivenl back just 
to see the old place and all my friends. Tliat was six years ago. 
1 saw my master's family. I wanted to see them — indeed I did, 
for I nursed them. I brought them with me, and will get them 
and show them to you. (Mrs. W. here left the room, and 
returned presently witJi a daguerreotype, which she handed to 
Dr. Howe.) I nursed that man when he was a child. His name 
is John Hoover. I nursed his brother, too. Tliey thought a 
good deal of me, and wouldn't do anything at all without asking 
me. This (another likeness) is a picture of my young master's 
cousin. IShe gave it to me herself, thinking I might not go back 
again, but I don't know but I shall. 

" I have seen a good deal of hard treatment of others, but 
never had any myself. I was just raised up like one of the 
family. I used to call my master " father," and the old lady 
" mother," until I came to this country. That is the way I 
was raised. I came off to follow my husband." 



99 

• 

It is remarkable that even the refugees who fled to 
escape brutal treatment express no dislike to the whites 
generally. Many of i speak of their old mistress with 
tenderness, and of her children as beloved playmates. 
Many would like to go back and live in the old place, but 
never as slaves. 

Among the minor virtues of these people is that of 

Cheerfulness. 
Indeed, the disposition to mirthfulness seems to be so 
strong in the negro as almost to merit the name of a 
peculiar quality. Oppression keeps it down for a time ; 
but it continually breaks out in jollity, and there is often 
more fun and laughter in the cabin than in the master's 
house. This disposition grows out of their very organ- 
ization, and their peculiarity in this respect may be 
among those marvellous arrangements by which Prov- 
idence prepares races for the parts they are to bear in the 
drama of existence. Indeed, some physiologists assert 
that the Caucasian race, during uterine and infantile 
growth, passes through-'-^ certain stages of form," which 
are so much more persistent in the African race as to be 
characteristic of it. May there not be something akin to 
this in the moral development of the race % The white 
man seems to pass out of that phase of young life 
abounding in mirth and jollity, when he passes beyond 
boyhood, while the negro remains longer in it, if indeed 
he ever gets out of it at all. At any rate, the negroes in 
this country are proverbially mirthful and childish. In 
the South, they are considered as children, and grown 
men are called " boys." 



100 



But the whole bodily organization and the resulting dis- 
positions are modified by external influences, especially in 
a cross breed. AVe have seen how the physical organiza- 
tion of the negroes has been modified at will, and just 
such kind of men produced as the market demanded. But 
this is not all. Slavery is instinctively discriminating in the 
moral, as well as the bodily qualities which it cultivates 
or represses. The Polish youth in the military schools, 
established and directed by the dominant Russians, used 
to assert that while the most rigid military discipline was 
enforced, and the slightest breach thereof was punished 
without mercy, moral discipline was not only neglected, 
but such vices as gambling and licentiousness were 
encouraged by being merely winked at. A sinful life 
would make them less likely to be Polish patriots, and 
more likely to be Russian mercenaries. So, for a slave, 
mirthfulness is wholesome and harmless ; but thinking is 
dangerous. The one promotes the growth and strength 
of the body, and that belongs to the master ; the other 
promotes the growth and strength of the soul, and that 
belongs to the slave. 

Moreover, slavery stunts the growth of individuality, 
and strives to make boyhood lifelong. Of course, 
there can be no true manliness without the feeling of 
independent individuality and the habit of self-guidance, 
and slavery prevents the exercise of these. Then there 
can be no character without responsibilities and cares, 
and slaves have few of them. In Canada, the negroes 
seem to have a more sober aspect. They look older at 
the same age than slaves do, and are not so rollicking 
and jolly. This is said doubtingly, because other 



101 

observers of them say they are more mirthful through 
life than whites are. 

In summing up their moral qualities, it may be said 
of the Canadian refugees generally, that like the mulat- 
toes of the Northern States, they seem a little effeminate, 
as though a portion of the grit had been left out of their 
composition. It may be, that with their African blood, 
they have inherited more of womanly than of manful 
dispositions ; for Africans have more of womanly virtues 
than fiercer people have. Indeed, it may be said that, 
among the races, Africa is like a gentle sister in a family 
of fierce brothers. 

General Conclusions^ drawn from Observation of the Con- 
dition of Colored People of Canada West. 

1st. That the negroes of Canada, being for the most 
part hybrids, are not of robust stock, and are unfavor- 
ably affected by the climate ; that they are infertile, and 
their infertility is increased by intermarriage with each 
other; and therefore, unless their number is kept up by 
immigrants from the United States, or by some artificial ' 
encouragement, they will decrease and disappear in a few 
generations. 

2d. That, with freedom and equality before the law, 
they are, upon the whole, sober, industrious, and thrifty, 
and have proved themselves to be capable of self-guidance 
and self-support. 

3d. That they have set themselves in families, and 
hallowed marriage, w^hereby sensuality has lessened, and 
amalgamation between the races nearly ceased. 



102 

4 til. That they are exceedingly imitative, but incline 
to imitate what is most worthy of imitation in the society 
about them, and are decidedly improving in knowledge 
and virtue. 

5 til. That those situated upon farms show ability, 
industry and skill enough to manage them, though their 
isolation retards their mental improvement. 

6tli. That when they congregate in large numbers in one 
locality, and establish separate churches and schools, they 
not only excite prejudices of race in others, but develop 
a spirit of caste among themselves, and make less pro- 
gress than where they form a small part of the local 
population. 

7tli. That prejudice against them among the whites 
(including the English) is engendered by the same cir- 
cumstances, and manifested with the same intensity, as in 
the United States. 

8th. That they have not taken firm root in Canada, 
and that they earnestly desire to go to the southern 
region of the United States, partly from love of warrpth, 
but more from love of home. 

9tli. That, compared with the whites, the per centage 
of crimes indicative of lax morality is large; that of 
crimes indicative of malice and ferocity, all things 
considered, is not large; and that the percentage of 
pauperism is very small indeed. 

lOth. That, upon the w^hole, they promote the indus- 
trial and material interests of the country, and are 
valuable citizens. 



103 



General Inferences to he drmvn from the experience of 

Negroes in Canada, as to the prohable effect of giving 
freedom and equality before the law to all Negroes in 

the United States. 

1st. That with freedom and the ownership of property, 
the instinct of family will be developed, marriages will 
increase, and promiscuous intercourse decrease. That 
the tendency of this change to increase population will 
be more than counteracted by the inferior fertility of the 
mulatto breed, when not invigorated by crossing with 
pure types, black or white ; so that the colored breed 
will soon begin to decrease. 

2d. That, under freedom, we may safely rely upon the 
natural laws of affinity to check amalgamation of races, 
which slavery encourages by putting a premium upon 
the offspring, and in other ways. 

od. That with entire freedom of movement and secu- 
rity from oppression, much of the colored population of 
the Northern and Western States will be drawn by the 
natural laws which govern movements of peoples towards 
the tropical regions, carrying with them social influences 
which will soften the ferocity now prevalent, and be 
beneficial in many respects. 

4th. That the negroes of the South are capable of 
self-guidance and support without other protection than 
will be needed by poor whites ; and that they will be 
loyal supporters of any government which ensures their 
freedom and rights. 

5th. That when living in communities with whites in 
not greater proportion than one thousand to fifteen or 



104 

twenty thousand, antagonism of race will hardly be 
developed, but the negroes will imitate the best features 
of white civilization, and will improve rapidly. 

6th. That it is not desirable to have them live in 
communities by themselves. 

7th. That they will be docile and easily governed by 
laws, and however given . to petty offences, will not be 
prone to crimes of grave character ; that they will be 
peculiarly susceptible to religious influence, and excel in 
some of the Christian virtues. 

8th. That they will not be idle, but industrious and 
thrifty, and that there will be less pauperism among 
them than is usual among our foreign emigrants. 

9th. That by their industry and thrift they will for- 
w^ard the industrial interests of the country, without the 
fearful demoralization heretofore caused by their oppres- 
sion and debasement. 

Finally, the lesson taught by this and other emigra- 
tions is, that the negro does best when let alone, and 
that we must beware of all attempts to prolong his ser- 
vitude, even under pretext of taking care of him. The 
white man has tried taking care of the negro, by slavery, 
by apprenticeship, by colonization, and has failed disas- 
trously in all; now let the negro try to take care of 
himself For, as all the blood and tears of our people in 
this revolutionary struggle will be held as cheap, if they 
re-establish our Union in universal freedom, so all the 
suffering and misery which his- people may suffer in their 
efforts for self-guidance and support Avill be held cheap, 
if they bring about emancipation from the control of 
the whites. 



APPENDIX. 



[Note, p. 17.] 

It was expected that the result of inquiries, instituted, would be known 
soon enough to enable us to give in this Report a more exact estimate of 
the population ; but it is not. From all information received, however, 
it appejirs that the estimate given on p. 17, is not too high. 

The following extract from a Report of the School Trustees of the 
City of London, proves that the census return of that city was entirely 
wrong ; and that probably the colored people were included in the 
column of Whites. The Abstract of the Census Report, 18G1, states, 
[page 49,] that there are 35 colored persons in London. But the 
School Report, dated November, 1862, shows that there were 153 
children, of whom 9G were of "school age." 

" Your Committee have employed careful parties to make an enumeration 
of the f;\milics of colored citizens, the number of children in each family, the 
number over five years of age, and the number attending school. From the 
statistics so collected it appears that the whole number of colored families in 
the city is as follows : — 



Wakd. 


Families. 


Number of 
Cliildren. 


Of 

School Age. 


Attending 
School. 


1, . . . 

2, . . . 

3, . . . 

4, . . . 

5, . . . 

6, . . . 

7, . . . 






10 


25 


11 

7 
2 

55 


23 


59 


52 

16 
3 

153 


11 


36 


33 
14 

2 

96 


7 


25 


18 



50 



Your Committee append, for the inspection of the Board, the hsts made out 

by the enumerators from which the foregoing epitome has been taken, and 

which shows that the number of colored families in the city is about 55, the 

number of children 153, of school age 96, and the number attending school 50." 

14 



106 

Tliere lias been no movement of the population which can by possi- 
bility have caused such a change. 

[Note No. 2, p. 51.] 
Extract from a Report of a Sub-Committee to the school trustees, 
City of London, November, 1862. • , 

" 1. Your Committee are fully satisfied that a feeling is -widely diffused 
among the people, whether well or Jll-founded it is useless to inquire, that the 
negro differs so essentially from the Caucasian race in organic structure, in 
the effects of climate influences, or both, that any close or intimate relations 
with them are not desirable. "While this feeling exists, while it prevails among 
the white population to such an extent, it is wrong, it is cruel in us to force 
their children into the same classes with those of the colored people. Besides, 
your Committee have seen that the children themselve sympathize in this prej- 
udice of their parents, and manifest a strong dislike to being seated with 
their colored class-mates ; and sometimes this feeling of repugnance is so 
strongly shown as to require the intervention of the teacher's authority to 
suppress it. When such is the case, it is vain to expect either harmony or a 
kindly feeling to prevail in the class-room or play-ground : but rather must we 
expect to find, on the part of both, a mind predisposed to take and give 
offence, a bandying of offensive epithets, embittered, acrimonious feelings, and 
juvenile quarrels. In these petty disputes the parents frequently lake part ; 
complaints are made, and will continue to be made by both parties, that their 
children have been insulted ; and, by the colored parents, that theirs have 
been harshly and perhaps unjustly treated. 

There is but little prospect, your Committee fear, of this state of things 
being remedied while the system of uniting both races in the same classes 
continues. 

2. Your Committee feel it a duty imposed upon them to state plainly — 
though the task may be an ungracious one — that from some unexplained 
organic cause, the close proximity of these people, children or adults, is disagree- 
able to their white neighbors. Your Committee will not be deterred, through 
any feeling of false delicacy, from stating that, in a close class-room, during the 
summer months, this eflluvium is highly offensive to many of the children, and 
still more so to many of the teachers. It is very true this cannot be, with any 
justice, brought against them as a charge for which they are responsible : 
neither do your Committee wish it, but still they esteem it a powerful reason 
why a separation should be sought, as the case admits of the application of no 
other remedy. 

3. Your Committee feel convinced that there is, and must be, a want of 
sympathy between the teacher and this part of her scholars, which is injurious 
to both. The teacher knows that, in the discharge of her duty, she ought to 
treat all alike ; that she should, without any visible constraint, self-imposed or 
otherwise, manifest the same affection for one as another. But this she cannot 
do ; and the little colored child feels with disappointment, mingled with grief, 



107 

that it has not the same easy access to the heart of the teacher that others 
of a similar age and character possess. Hence originates the conviction, even 
when still young, that they are not placed upon the same footing as others. 
Suspicion is aroused, and they begin to watch with a jealous eye every move- 
ment of the teacher, to compare her bearing towards them, the manner in which 
she recognizes their wish to please and their endeavors to excel, with her 
bearing and manner in respect to similar conduct on the part of the other 
children, and draw their own inferences therefrom. 

Your Committee are certain that any keen observer can make up his mind 
upon this part of the subject, in an evening visit to any of the classes where 
these colored children are most numerous, %y observing the different manners 
in which the two races take leave of the teacher for the day. The beaming 
eye and radiant smile with which the little white girl approaches her 
teacher, indicate a warm and assured recognition of her salute ; while the 
little African stands wistfully apart, gazing on the scene, or moves off with 
either grief, jealousy, or a dogged indifference, visible upon its countenance." 

There was much more to this effect; but not one word of censure 
upon teachers, who by their '■'■want of sympathy" proved themselves to 
be unfit for their duties. A vain effort was made to amend this most 
discreditable Report, by inserting the following words : — 

" That, believing the colored population to be a portion of the human 
family, who have chosen Canada as the land of their adoption, and being loyal 
subjects of her jMajesty the Queen, we consider them fully entitled to all the 
civic and religious rights of British subjects, and reject now and henceforth 
the report of Messrs. Webb, Graydon, &c., which, if ever acted upon, 
would deny them those equal rights dear to every Briton, and subject them 
to a great amount of inconvenience and persecution." 

The Report was finally amended, by substituting for Section 3d, a less 
offensive one ; but the question of substituting a caste school for the 
common school ; of expelling colored children from the common school, 
and restricting them to the caste school, was settled in the affirmative, 
by a vote of ten to three. Messrs. Alex. Johnston, McPherson, and 
Ross, having manliness and pluck enough to vote against the measure, 
as " Anti-British." 

BUXTON SETTLEMENT. 

[iVBSTUACT OF THE TESTIMONY OF ReV. WiLLIAM KiNG.] 

This settlement was formed in 1849. I brought fifteen of my own 
people here, [slaves whom he had emancipated,] and have trusted to 
voluntary emigration since. They formed the nucleus of the commu- 
nity, and others came in. In August, 1850, I procured an Act of 
Incorporation from Parliament. The whole of my plan was this :— 



108 

to provide these people with a liome, and their children with an educa- 
tion ; and with these two things, I iV-lt confident every blessing would 
come. The men were charged $2.50 an acre for the land, to be paid in 
twelve annual instalments. "When a fugitive came to me who had not 
a cent, I said to him, "You can go to work, and earn twelve dollars 
and a half, and pay the first instalment on your land, and have ten 
years in which to pay the rest." They were all able to pay the first 
instalment, for the railroads were being built at that time, and they 
could readily get work. I taught them never to ask for a cent, if they 
could earn it themselves. You \vould hardly ever see one of them 
begging, and we have endeavored to cultivate that principle throughout 
the whole. They have supplied their own tools and cattle. I was at 
considerable expense in establishing the settlement, but I have asked 
no fee or reward, because I knew the moment I did so, it would be said 
I was acting from mercenary motives. I formed an association, in order 
to secure all this land, if they failed to purchase it themselves, because I 
knew speculators would come in and buy it up if I did not take that 
precaution. 

The houses here were put up by the colonists themselves, after a 
model furnished them, 18 feet by 24, twelve feet high, and set thirty- 
three feet from the road, and enclosed with a picket fence: In three 
years after I came here, there were one hundred men who could become 
British subjects. We can turn out 150 or IGO voters for members of 
Parliament now, and 220 voters for councillors. I had an anti-alienation 
clause inserted in tlie deeds, so that these people could not transfer their 
land to a white man until they had been here for ten years. That has 
kept them a compact body, so that the political power they have got will 
protect them. Prejudice has melted before that political power, and 
now the people are respected and elecled to cfTicc — path-masters, school 
trustees, and councillors. That is as high as we can get ; for a white 
man would never vote for a colored man as member of Parliament. 
In this district, we have had two Councillors in one year. 

At the present time, two thousand acres are deeded, in fee simple, 
one- third of which has been paid for, principal and interest. The 
whole block contains nine thousand acres. The population of the set- 
tlement is about one thousand — men, women, and children. I have 
made them self-supporting in all material matters, and they are more 
than half self-supporting in their schools at the presefit moment. They 
have established two schools in the northern part of the settlement, of 
which they pay all the expenses, and as soon as I can get them to pay 
for the land, I shall make this school [the central] self-supporting. 
The most that any of them owe on fifty acres of land is $183. I 
expect to settle the whole thing up in eighteen months. I have no 



109 

doubt in regard to their paying every cent on their land. I am making 
arrangements to get all the deeds out this fall, and let them borrow 
the money from a money-lender and pay what is due, giving him mort- 
gages, which I am sure will all be paid in eighteen months. They are apt 
to take advantage when they find they are not compelled by necessity to 
pay what they owe. Out of all who came in, there were only three 
who had their first instalment paid by a friend. I took the notes of the 
three parties for the amount ; one of them paid, but the others will not. 
If the friend who advanced the money had been a Jew, they would 
have paid him. I have known some of the men to borrow a hundred 
dollars for their own purposes, and it has always been repaid. 

From the day I came here to this, there has not been a drunken col- 
ored man in this settlement. No man is allowed to sell liquor in this 
settlement ; and to the honor of the people be it said, that when one 
man came on our borders and opened a grog-shop, he could not remain 
twelve months, for they would not support him. But if brought together, 
and left to idleness, they would soon become demoralized. 

With regard to the climate, I find that when the colored people are 
clothed the same as Canadians, it has no more influence on them than 
on whites. Those I brought from Louisiana stood the climate just 
as well as those who were born in the North. In general, they are 
quite robust and healthy. There has been but very little sickness in 
the settlement. We have had no epidemic. We vaccinate the people, 
and have had but one case of small-pox. 

There are some large families here. There is one man with fourteen 
children ; another has twelve ; another, ten. They are about half blacks 
and half mulattoes. The average of children to a family is about three, 
— not including the deaths. I don't think the mortality here has been 
any greater than it would have been in any settlement, under the same 
circumstances. I think the mulattoes are not so long-lived here as the 
whites or the blacks. And even in New Orleans, Dr. Stone — very 
good authority there — stated to me that he was of opinion that the 
mixed race would die out in four generations. I have watched that 
matter since, and it seems to me that, as a class they have not the same 
stamina as pure blacks or pure whites. 

Only four illegitimate children have been born in this settlement ; 
and that is a better state of things than you will find in Europe. In 
England, Scotland, or Ireland, the proportion of bastards is much 
greater. The people here consider it a disgrace. I observe that they 
pay a very great respect to chastity and to the marriage relation. They 
all want to be proclaimed in church three times. There will be cases of 
infidelity among them, but the guilty parties are not respected. The 
most blame falls on the woman. Very few cases of adultery have 



no 

come under my observation. I strongly suspect three or four women, 
from their conduct among men ; but I have no proof of thinr 
criminaHty. 

We have had one or two cases of petty larceny, and one of man- 
slaughter. The class we have here has been very free from pilfering; 
it has been an exception to the generality of the race. I will tell you one 
fault they have ; when they borrow an article from me, they never 
return it. I cannot say they have stolen it ; but they neglect to return it. 

If freedom is established in the United States, I don't think it will 
have any effect upon the settlers here; but the young men and young 
women who are educated here will go down there, because they cannot 
get white schools here to teach, such is the prejudice against them, and 
there are not colored schools enough to employ them. I don't think col- 
ored schools will be multiplied here, because they are not expedient, and 
in a i'ew years I think there will be but few left in the Province. I have 
never encouraged the formation of villages, because 1 thought the main- 
stay of the people would be agriculture. If any of the settlers are 
untbrtunate, the others freely help him. There are thirty orphans in 
the settlement, who are supported by different families. 

This settlement is a perfect success ; there is no doubt about that. I 
am prepared to prove tliat in any place. Here are men who were bred 
in slavery, who came here and purchased land at the government prices, 
cleared it, bought their own implements, built their own houses after a 
model, and have supported themselves in all material circumstances, and 
now support their schools, in part. I charge them twenty-five cents a 
month for schooling, Avhen they are able to pay it. Not one-fourth pay 
here, where there is no compulsion ; but in the government schools, 
where the law obliges them to do so, they all pay it. I consider that 
this settlement has done as well as any white settlement would have done, 
under the same circumstances ; and I am prepared to prove that a colored 
community can be made industrious and self-supporting, if they are 
properly treated. I have no doubt that the colored people of your coun- 
try, as soon as the war is over, if they are put upon the farms of the 
South, will become self-supporting. A finer class of laborers cannot be 
found in the world for raising cotton. Only introduce Northern capital, 
or Southern capital, give them full remuneration, and in a short time 
you will find them an industrious, respectable, self-supporting community. 





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